SALT LAKE CITY — Jessie Rosas remembers being seven years old, tagging along with his father Jesus in a snowstorm to sell tacos on the sidewalk outside the old Sears building.
“He said, 'I don't care if only one person shows all day, I'm still going to put the cart here all day, all night,'" said Jessie. “Even if it's raining, even if it's snowing, even with COVID, we were there.”
In 1998, Jesus brought a taste of Mexico to the streets of Salt Lake City, building a cart and setting up the city's first taco stand.
25 years later, Jessie and his brother Christian Rosas are taking their father’s dream and running with it, opening Tacos Don Rafa’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant at 3804 S. Highland Drive in Millcreek.
“We never thought the response of the community and the Salt Lake City people would allow us to be part of them," said Christian.
The dream doesn't stop with the brick-and-mortar restaurant; the two brothers want to take the small taco cart their father created around the world.
“I don't want a franchise," said Jessie. "Just one, but one in Canada, one in the Middle East, one in Europe, one in Mexico, one in South America.”
The expansion was never their father’s dream, but the brothers hope to make him proud, seeing them taking the TDR legacy global.
“Taco carts were 25 years ago," said Christian, referencing a conversation he had with his father Jesus. "It was a hit. You were the first one. You're the last one, and you and you are the godfather of the taco stand. But Utah’s just changing. The United States is changing.”
The secret ingredient to Tacos Don Rafa’s success is a little bit of salt from the family's hometown of Colima, Mexico, and a lot of love.
“When you cook food without love or without passion and you're just doing it for the money, money will run," said Christian.
