Sally’s Tacos
Everybody remembers Sally’s Tacos.
I recently posted a picture on the Atascosa Voices Facebook page of Ned’s Pizza and Wings. Delicious place. The question I posed was simple: What do you remember?
Little did I know that Ned’s occupies the location where Sally’s Tacos once stood. My photo unintentionally opened up a collection of much older memories.
To the people who remembered it, Sally’s was much more than a taco stand. It was a little piece of ritual.
Even my wife had her own memories of the place. I naturally became curious and started looking for whatever I could find.
Besides an old Yelp review and a 2013 article in the Pleasanton Express celebrating Sally’s 25th anniversary, there isn't much of a digital footprint left behind.
How do we recover something so recent, yet so seemingly distant?
We ask the people who were there.
And when I did, their memories were remarkably vivid.
But first, who was Sally?
Sally’s Tacos opened in 1988 on North Bryant Street. Its owner was Celestina “Sally” Barabe.
The 2013 Pleasanton Express article tells an interesting story about how it began. Sally was initially hesitant and didn't want to leave her position as a manager at Dillard's. Her son, Tony Rodriguez, who was working for PepsiCo at the time, encouraged her to purchase the property on Bryant Street.
Sally’s started as a small stand with a drive-thru and patio. Over the years, it underwent four renovations and eventually doubled in size. Located near Pleasanton ISD, it became part of the morning routine for generations of families.
What struck me most about the comments was how often Sally herself appeared in people's memories. There was hardly a mention of the tacos without a memory of her attached to it.
One resident remembered Sally always being impeccably dressed, with her makeup perfectly done. Others remembered how she greeted customers and made them feel at home.
What makes a restaurant more than a place to eat? What makes it important to a community?
Maybe it's the personality behind it.
Sally was a warm and caring woman.
Sally knew her customers by name, remembered their orders, and even sat down to talk with them. Lynse Owen Pawelek called her “the heart and soul of the place.” Mary Morin remembered that it was Sally's “care for her customers and her kids from school” that made the restaurant special.
Lupita Gauna set that scene for us: “The ladies were sweet. Sally always said hello.” Roland J. Rodriguez also remembers, “Sally was the sweetest lady.”
Sally remembered people, and maybe that’s why so many people remember her.
And then there was the food.
Sadi Rosa remembers bacon and egg tacos and a Sunny D before school.
Teana Navarro remembers bean and bacon tacos with Coke or orange juice, and getting ready faster in the morning because there was time to stop at Sally's.
Michelle Roberson remembers a carne guisada with cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes every Friday during high school.
For some, it was the bean and cheese tacos. For others, potato and egg. There was beef fajita, Super Chalupas, salsa, and something called the Rick Casey, which David De La O remembers as having bacon and, in his words, "slapped harder than Ike Turner."
The orders changed. The attachment didn't.
People remember what they ate with the strange precision we reserve for places that mattered before we realized they mattered.
Sally’s had become part of people's routines. A breakfast taco and a friendly face on the way to school, work, practice, or a weekend trip.
Sharon Ellis McCuistian remembers meeting a friend and their children at Sally’s every Friday morning. Her children still talk about those mornings.
Staci Trevino Shives remembers Sally’s fueling her early morning Pacesetter practices. The staff knew their orders by heart.
Darlene Samsel Huth remembers stopping before early soccer and baseball games so her sons wouldn't go hungry.
This is what happens when a place becomes a ritual. It connects generations. People remembered going to Sally’s with their parents and grandparents, then later bringing their own children. The same little taco stand became part of different stages of the same families’ lives.
A child might not remember the name of the restaurant years later, but remember sitting there with a grandmother. A parent might remember taking their own children there before school. The place becomes inseparable from the people who were there.
If we could step back into some of those mornings, maybe we would.
Brian Milker remembers getting breakfast tacos at Sally’s with his wife, especially when they were headed to Rockport. He would fill the truck and boat with gas while she went inside to pick up their tacos.
His wife died from cancer two years ago, and Brian wrote that he is now fighting cancer himself. Yet that memory of Sally’s still takes him back to what he called “those great times.”
Brian wasn't the only one who wished Sally's was still there. Lisa Harris wrote that she misses the place “so much.” Gabriel Mejia said he would “trade some things to have those things back today.”
And then there are the people who still dream about the food. Cassie Fullenwider wrote that she still dreams about Sally's bean and cheese tacos. Teana Navarro said she had never found another taco that tasted quite the same.
What remains isn't really the restaurant itself. It's the people attached to it.
The child who remembers a grandmother.
The parent who remembers Friday mornings.
The athlete who remembers breakfast before practice.
The husband who remembers a wife picking up tacos for the road.
The people who still remember Sally greeting them by name.
Maybe it was never the place that made it special.
Maybe it was the mornings that it created.