The only taco Toledo can claim as indigenous is the Taco Bell Cool Ranch Dorito’s Locos Taco Supreme, which honored the city for being its test market. But just south of downtown, tacos and other vividly authentic Mexican foods are available in a vibrant and growing Hispanic neighborhood.
Old South End buildings along Broadway jump out with their brilliantly colored murals of tan-skinned people and sharply-hued animals, and Mexican restaurants are popping up with food as flavorful and alive as their owners’ memories of youth.
La Cachanilla
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At 222 South Summit St., shortly before the street becomes Broadway, La Cachanilla sits in the former Hi-Level Diner. The dining area centers around an L-shaped countertop with padded stools, where eggs are served with tortillas instead of hash browns. Booths surround the countertop, where Roberto and Jesús Garduño deliver menus with free chips and house-made salsa.
Their mother, Beatriz Garduño, opened La Cachanilla in 2012, deciding that the diner was the right place for her first restaurant. La Cachanilla is the name of a western flower, and a nickname for people from the Baja Peninsula, where Garduño grew up and learned to cook from her mother.
After some deep cleaning and light remodeling, Garduño assembled a menu to complement the tamales she was already selling to friends. Standing behind the kitchen wall, she cooks food that she enjoys just as much as her customers. “If I don’t like it, then the customer won’t like it,” she said. “Everything’s made from scratch,” said her son, Roberto. Beatriz’s “sopes” (imagine a mini taco salad served atop a crunchy, cornmeal shell) are formed with handmade shells. Her chicken and pork tamales—both meaty and spicy—are rolled fresh every day. “It might take a little more time, but it is worth it,” said Garduño.
La Michoacana
A few weeks ago, a new taco shop opened at 1218 Broadway near Western Ave. The yellow paint is still clean and unfreckled. Inside, booths are new and patterned with chili peppers. Mexican paintings and sombreros hang from the walls. Spanish talk radio plays over a small corner speaker, unless it’s the weekend, when local musicians play Mexican standards with acoustic guitars.
Lorenzo Morales worked at 11 different restaurants over 12 years before he opened his own shop on Emerald Avenue six months ago. It only took half a year before he realized he needed a bigger place for his taquería. La Michoacana is now open for business on Broadway, where even the chips, or “fritas,” are made in-house.
"[We are] 100 percent Mexicano . . . no fifty-fifty.” said Morales, who grew up in the Mexican state of Michoacan. Cooking is what Morales wanted to do since he was young; it is the only thing he has ever wanted to do. “It’s my dream, my sueño,” he said.
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At La Michoacana, tacos arrive hot, moments after being prepared. Morales inspects all of his ingredients before he buys them. I ate a steak (“asada”)taco as quickly as it arrived. It was simply dressed, beefy and had enough flavor to linger on my tastebuds the rest of my day. I also ate an entire basket of chips. They were warm and salty, freshly crisped with oil that was still settling back into the thin sheets of corn.
With each new taquería, Toledo moves closer to the recipes and the people who make them. Toledo’s new Mexican restaurants reflect the owners’ personalities as much as the regions where they learned to cook. Deciding to go out for Mexican food is only the beginning of the conversation.
Dorian Slaybod is 28, a local attorney and happily living in Toledo.
