The Story of Chico’s Tacos
How a teenager’s improvised recipe and a boxing promoter’s stubbornness became the most El Paso thing there is.
They’re not really tacos — not Tex-Mex, not authentic Mexican either. What Chico’s Tacos are is crispy rolled flautas drowned in warm tomato broth under a mountain of the yellowest cheese imaginable, and they exist nowhere on Earth except El Paso. If you want the rundown of the dish itself, that’s on our what-to-order guide — but the story of how it got here starts with a hungry teenager.
A Recipe Born of Necessity
While his parents worked, a young Joe Mora looked after his siblings — and with little to cook with, he improvised. The rolled, fried taco in tomato sauce he invented to stretch what the family had would, decades later, feed a whole city. By 1953 Mora was a boxing promoter and jukebox mechanic wanting a side gig, and on the Fourth of July he opened his first stand on Alameda Avenue with a few friends — who quit the rolled-taco business within months, sure it would fail.
That one stubborn line became the whole identity. Told his creation didn’t qualify as a taco, Mora didn’t argue — he renamed the argument. The debate never ended: purists still refuse them on principle while everyone else lines up out the door, a tension you’ll taste for yourself if you check the honest prices and value breakdown. Mora worked seven days a week for years, and it took fourteen of them before he trusted the idea enough to open a second store.
From Taco Stand to Institution
The Original on Alameda
Joe and Emma Mora open at 4230 Alameda Avenue on July 4. By the late ’50s he quits boxing promotion to run it full time.
The Chain Begins
Fourteen years on, a second store opens near Chelmont; the Dyer Street location follows in 1971, taking over the old Rock Inn.
The Founder Passes the Tray
Joe Mora dies. His children take over, keeping the recipes — and even the daily cash envelopes he designed in 1953 — exactly as he left them.
State Honor & National Fame
Texas House Resolution HR 84 honors the Mora family at the 50th anniversary; Gabriel Iglesias name-checks Chico’s in his El Paso-taped special, and the Food Network features it soon after.
Four Locations, 15,000 Tacos a Day
Still family-run, still cash-only, still the 1953 recipe — spread across four El Paso spots you can find on the locations and hours page.
The Sauce Nobody Can Have
Ask any El Pasoan what makes Chico’s Chico’s and they’ll say the sauce — that tangy, tomato-soup-meets-mild-hot-sauce broth the tacos swim in. The family guards it like a state secret; food-prep workers reportedly sign non-disclosure agreements before they’re allowed near it. Pressed for the recipe, president Richard Mora Sr. offers only a shrug — any cook can make it, he says, “it’s how you put it together.” Even Bernie Mora admits the family doesn’t fully know how his father first dreamed it up. The most famous flavor in El Paso is a mystery to the people who own it.
Why It Only Works in El Paso
Mora once tried a location in Albuquerque; it didn’t stick, and he decided a family business couldn’t stay authentic outside El Paso. That instinct became doctrine — the family has resisted expanding for decades, and even sued an Austin copycat, “Chuco’s Tacos,” for trademark infringement in the late 2000s. “We are homegrown El Paso,” Richard Mora Sr. said. “Money stays in El Paso.” That’s why a plate of Chico’s means more than food to the people raised on it: parents who ate at the counter as kids now bring their own children, chasing the memory as much as the taco. That, more than the sauce, is the real secret recipe.
Chico’s Tacos History FAQ
When did Chico’s Tacos open?
Chico’s Tacos opened on July 4, 1953, at 4230 Alameda Avenue in El Paso, founded by boxing promoter Joe Mora and his wife Emma. It has been family-operated for over 70 years.
Who founded Chico’s Tacos?
Joe Mora, an El Paso boxing promoter and jukebox mechanic, founded it on a rolled-taco recipe he invented as a teenager to feed his siblings cheaply. His children run the restaurants today.
Why are they called Chico’s Tacos if they’re not really tacos?
When critics said his fried, sauce-soaked rolled flautas weren’t tacos, Mora replied they weren’t ordinary tacos — they were “Chico’s Tacos.” The name embraced the criticism and stuck.
What is Chico’s Tacos’ secret sauce?
The tomato-based broth is a guarded family secret, with food-prep workers reportedly signing NDAs. The family says the magic is in how it’s put together rather than any exotic ingredient.
How many Chico’s Tacos locations are there?
Four, all in El Paso. The family has deliberately resisted expanding elsewhere to keep the business authentic, even pulling back from an early Albuquerque location.