Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liz Nena Porcayo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Liz Nena, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My family is originally from Mexico and every holiday season at Christmas we made hundreds of tamales. It was a special thing for us that was passed down to me by my late mother Manuela passed down from her mother Maria De Jesus who were both from Zacatecas. What better way to cheer people up than by feeding comfort food my family and I enjoyed. What I had envisioned was bringing some traditional food with a twist. Have you ever had a bacon mac and cheese tamale served fresh with queso, crema and salsa? The idea was to put a spin on something traditional but have some adventure with it as well. There was also a problem with local venues not having hot food available for their show goers and this helped keep them happy and having fun at the shows. It really sounded like a great opportunity so the very next day I applied for a catering business license here in Washington state and my food handlers permit. Nacho Mama’s Tamales was born and I quickly hit the ground running and started out with a small warming steam pan at an underground night club in Ballard WA called Substation.

Liz Nena, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a true music fan and vocalist, when I started this business I had the heart of bringing delicious food to a music venue for late night eats and to feed the concert goers and musicians (we sometimes forget to eat due to excitement pre show jitters etc.). I have had so much fun with recipes catered especially to the bands that were playing shows. For example, I do catering events for album release shows and name the headlining band tamale and speak to them to find out what they would like their unique flavor to be. This has been such an adventure for me, learning to navigate the business world, reemerging after a global shut down. What a ride!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Before the pandemic I was supporting my family and was able to stop working my full time day job and just focus on making delicious artisan food. I had a few contracts with local bars and delivered fresh or frozen tamales to reheat and serve meeting a need for the liquor board to provide food or snacks to patrons drinking in their establishments. I moved out of the Seattle area in 2019 to Skagit County and with the COVID 19 pandemic things really slowed down the operation everything came to a halt it seemed. Luckily, I recently landed a great commercial kitchen space in Anacortes WA and have partnered with a local Cannabis shop (Salish Coast Cannabis) on the Swinomish Indian Reservation to bring tasty food back to the PNW.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

After I made the decision to apply for a business license, I very quickly started a Go Fund Me account and had incredible support from generous friends and family who donated to the cause. My vision and story was picked as one of the businesses that Go Fund Me selected to give a special gift of $1000.00 dollars to boost my dream. I started with a little under $5,000.00 dollars. I bought up the kitchen equipment I needed and started small building and gathering my gear along the way. I am so fortunate to have a great community of musicians, friends and family that believe in me and my vision to bring the tastiest food to the masses.

Contact Info:

• Website: nachomamastamales.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nachomamastamales/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nachomamastamalesfoodtruck/

Image Credits
Selfies mostly lol