RICHMOND, Va. -- Maria Martin and her family recently opened a Richmond outpost of Juan More Taco on Robinson Street in The Fan.
The family also owns and operates a Juan More Taco in Fredericksburg. Virginia.
But the story of Juan More Taco begins in Honduras, where Maria was born and raised.
"Honduras has a lot of Mediterranean Middle Eastern influence. And we use a lot of spices and I'm not saying spices in the sense of spicy hot food, just flavorful," Maria Martin said when asked to describe Honduran food. "I go to some places [taco restaurants in the U.S.] and I have to see what I'm eating because everything tastes the same. There is no difference. For us and our places, every meat has distinct flavors. So that's the beauty of the Honduran flavors that we have put into our food. You can really, really taste the flavors."
Love eventually brought Martin to Virginia where she and her husband raised their children. Once the children were grown and out of the house, Maria sought another job.
She went from feeding her family and friends to feeding her community through a food truck.
"We started researching and we find this little tiny trailer in Florida. We went, we saw it, we bought it. By December 2, 2016, we opened our doors and served food through our window," she said. "It was amazing. Not even six months later, and I have people saying you know, we want to support you to open a brick and mortar. But I'm like, I'm not ready."
She was ready a few years later.
Juan More Taco opened as a restaurant in Fredericksburg in 2019.
In March 2020, Maria put in a big order of food for the restaurant just before COVID-19 shuttered the industry. Or so she thought.
"In my head, I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'm losing my business,'" she recalled. "I just had a $3,000 delivery of food. What am I going to do? The first thing that comes to my mind is we can feed the elderly, right?"
Martin and her family put out the word on social media.
That first week, about a dozen people took her up on her offer for free food.
By the end of that summer, Maria and Juan More Taco were feeding 75 seniors every single day.
"COVID was our busiest time. It was insanely busy. I had like 20 employees. We didn't close one day of the week. It was work, work, work, work work. We were super busy with the food truck," she said.
On this episode of Eat It, Virginia, listen to Maria Martin talk about what she learned about herself and her business during the pandemic and learn why she chose Richmond to open her next restaurant.
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