“¿Quiere un taco? Ándele,” says Rogelio Gonzalez, owner of Carnitas Rogelio, holding a taco in one hand while signaling to a new customer with the other. “Do you want a taco? Come on, here.”
The taco is loaded with his signature carnitas estilo Michoacán. The gesture finds Gonzalez graciously giving out a free taco to any new or returning customer, a tradition that his grandfather and father taught him that he has continued for the past 40 years.
“It’s the way it’s done in the capital of carnitas, Quiroga Michoacán, where I’m from,” Gonzalez says in Spanish as he finely chops an order of cuero (pig skin). “People need to try the food, you know.”
Gonzalez is a full-time landscaper during the week and carnitas specialist during the weekend. But before starting his now-popular Carnitas Rogelio stand, he was frying up carnitas for a cause.
“My brothers and I committed to raise and donate money to help build a chapel back home, but people didn’t want to donate anymore,” he continues. “Y luego se me prendio el foco, and then a light bulb went off, and with just $300 that me and my brothers had, we decided to make carnitas to sell.”