“Two asada tacos, two asada tacos,” Cristina Bautista briskly repeats after penciling in a lunchtime order.
“One chirizo burrito, one chirizo burrito,” she yells, calling to a customer that his order was up.
Bautista, owner of La Juanita, handles her multiple roles of hostess, cashier and expeditor with the aplomb of an air traffic controller.
She needs to, since her popular 1316 Pierce Street restaurant is always busy.
“Our customers love our food,” Bautista said during a rare break in the action, “and we love serving it to them.”
Moving to Sioux City in 1997, Bautista named her business after her older sister Juanita, who began her own “lunch truck” restaurant in California back in the 70s.
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“Juanita would set up shop at parking lots around the city, feeding workers during their lunch and afternoon breaks,” Bautista, a native of Jalisco, Mexico, remembered.
But competition in the lunch wagon became so great that the family pulled up stakes, moving to Sioux City.
“We got permission to park our trucks in the parking lot of a couple of manufacturing plants,” Bautista recalled. “Business was so good that we opened up our own restaurant in 1998.”
Open seven days a week, La Juanita has built its reputation on fresh, authentic Mexican fare. Menu items vary from burritos, flautas and quesadillas to decidedly more exotic fare, such as tacos containing fish, and, believe it or not, beef liver.
“I thought it would be the Hispanic community that would order the liver taco,” Bautista admitted, “but everyone seems to appreciate the health benefits of liver.”
In fact, it's this nod to authenticity that separates the family owned La Juanita from its more mainstream competition.
“At a chain taco place, you're getting Tex-Mex,” Bautista points out. “Here, you're getting authentic Mexican food that comes from family recipes and with the freshest ingredients available.”
And people are noticing the difference.
“We had a customer who missed our food so much that he stopped by as soon as he was discharged from the hospital following surgery,” Bautista said with a laugh. “He didn't even stop at home first. He needed his La Juanita right away.”
Other fans of her food have contacted Bautista from the other side of the world.
“We've had requests for La Juanita T-shirts from U.S. soldiers who wanted to wear them in Iraq,” she said, smiling. “Hey, it's good publicity.”
Bautista is most proud of the people, who have left Sioux City but returned singing the praises of her restaurant.
“Mexican restaurants are all around but there's no place quite like La Juanita,” she said. “That's what people tell me and that always makes me happy.”
Indeed, La Juanita has been asked to cater birthdays, anniversaries and, even, funerals.
“In good times and in bad, people think of our food,” Bautista said. “That really says we have been embraced in this community.”
This was a big initial concern for Bautista's family.
“We were successful in California but Iowa was much different,” she explained. “We were uncertain that Sioux City was a big enough community for us.”
