Elvira Leal married Ruben right before he shipped out to fight in World War II, two purple hearts and a bronze star waiting for him on the other side of it. While he was overseas, she was back home learning the restaurant trade from her own parents, who ran a spot called La Rumba in Little Mexico. Her mother cooked at El Fenix. When Ruben came home, the two of them opened Dallas Tortilla & Tamale Factory in 1950, and the same family has been running it ever since.
Ruben Jr. has led the business for more than 40 years now, alongside his brothers Jesse, Edward, and Matias, carrying forward what the menu still calls Mama Elvira’s Original Tamales. That’s not marketing language. It’s the actual recipe, unchanged, still made by hand at 309 N. Marsalis Ave. in Oak Cliff.
The tamales are the reason to go, sold by the dozen in pork, beef, chicken, pork jalapeño, and beef jalapeño, wrapped tight and steamed the traditional way, no shortcuts visible anywhere on the plate. Regulars order them by the dozen for the freezer and by the half dozen for right now, and more than one family in Oak Cliff has made a Christmas Eve tradition out of picking up a stack here every December, the way other families have a specific bakery for Thanksgiving pie.
Beyond the tamales, the counter sells fresh corn and flour tortillas made daily, along with prepared and unprepared tamale masa for anyone who wants to build their own at home. Weekends bring a short list of specials worth planning a trip around: lengua, barbacoa, and chicharrones sold by the pound, plus menudo by the half gallon for anyone nursing a Saturday morning back to life. Red salsa, green salsa, and pico de gallo are all made in house and sold by the container, which tells you something about how many people walk out with more than just the tamales.
It’s a counter-service operation, not a sit-down restaurant, which is exactly why it’s stayed under the radar for as long as it has. There’s no dining room to photograph, no cocktail list, nothing built for a night out. What’s here instead is more than seven decades of one family doing one thing extremely well, in the same neighborhood, for the same kind of customer who’s been coming back since before some of them were born.
Dallas Tortilla & Tamale Factory is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 309 N. Marsalis Ave. in Dallas. Orders are best placed ahead by phone, especially for anything beyond a few dozen tamales, at (214) 943-7681. More at dallastortilla.net or on Facebook.
