Tacos El Gordo is an authentic Mexican restaurant at 1434 N. Central Expressway, Ste. 113, McKinney. Oviedo and Luis started the business in 2017 after searching for years for authentic Mexican food.
“My husband is from McKinney, and when we got married [in 2013], we would always look for some authentic tacos,” Oviedo said. “We used to just drive to Dallas, until one day we just decided to try and open a taco shop ourselves.”
After the initial opening in 2017, Oviedo said the family struggled for a long time trying to be financially stable in the business.
“It was difficult at the beginning for us to open,” Oviedo said. “We had a lot of community support, but we got to a point where we didn’t even have money for our bills because everything came out of our pockets.”
Running the business within the family had its ups and downs, Oviedo said. They had all the support from their staff, but during the pandemic, their losses doubled as they lost not only an employee, but a family member, too.
“My father-in-law was diagnosed with COVID[-19] and passed away on Jan. 4,” Oviedo said. “So it was really hard for us, especially for my husband, to come back after we lost a family member.”
With their loss during the pandemic, Oviedo said they closed the restaurant for a few months but decided to come back after seeing all the support from the community. She said she is excited to see their regular customers and new ones coming in more now that they have reopened. “It’s fair to have big dreams,” Oviedo said. “You just have to keep working and go for it. We were scared of not making sales and having customers, and it’s really hard. But you have to be consistent and disciplined.”
Tacos El Gordo
1434 N. Central Expressway, Ste. 113, McKinney
214-842-8961
www.tacosdelgordo.net
Hours: Mon. closed. Tue-Thu. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
