Hannah Garrido knew her husband wasn’t happy. Omar, the man she met in a pizza kitchen years ago, who spent 14 years as a district manager for restaurants in Omaha, didn’t belong working at her father’s fire alarm company with her.
Two years into their marriage, Omar came home after work with a revelation.
“I want to open a food truck,” he said.
Hannah was open to it. Maybe someday, if they worked together, they could open one. She wasn’t expecting for her husband to walk through the door a week later with paperwork for an LLC and keys to a plain white truck in hand.
The Garridos opened The Churro Truck in 2016, working full-time jobs to keep the business afloat. As the truck’s popularity grew, another dream started to take shape: owning a permanent location somewhere in Omaha.That dream recently came true when the Garridos opened the doors to El Churro Spot in February of this year on the corner of 50th Street and Saddle Creek Road.
“For Omar, if he has an idea and he wants something, he’s going to find a way to get it,” Hannah said. “I just try to be encouraging of that and supportive. Luckily it worked out for us, but I know it’s been really hard. It’s not an easy job or an easy life.”
The first year of The Churro Truck was difficult for the Garrido family. Hannah remembers the two of them working at the fire alarm company during the day and spending all night selling food like tamales and churros out of the truck.
Sometimes they encountered challenges selling food streetside. While food truck’s have been growing in popularity across Omaha, their presence hasn’t always been welcome by competing business owners.
“There were a couple of times when some restaurants in the Old Market would come and tell us that we needed to get out or try to tell us that we were parked illegally,” Omar said. “Anything they could think of to get us to leave.”
But over time they built a reputation by word of mouth and serving private events. As the customer base grew, some would drive from across town for Hannah and Omar’s food. In 2017 Omar made the truck his full-time job. Five years later, a restaurant space opened along Saddle Creek that seemed perfect for Omar.
“It’s not too big and small enough for what I want,” Omar said of the 50th Street and Saddle Creek location next to O’Leaver’s Pub. “We’re in the area that I really like in the middle of everything, Dundee and Aksarben, so being close to everything I thought it was perfect and jumped on the opportunity,”
The permanent location offers the same food people have come to know and love, only now people don’t need to chase the truck around town to find it. Omar says that even though the opening of El Churro Spot has been his main priority lately, his first love — the food truck — will remain in operation. Until Omar can find enough staff, The Churro Truck will cut their events from 10 a week to three.
Both of the Garridos have big plans for the development of their business and have decided that this is definitely not the last El Churro Spot to open in town. Maybe the next one will have a drive through like Omar dreamed of or maybe it will be in West Omaha like Hannah wants. The one thing they know for sure is that there is another restaurant in their future.
“Right now, we keep growing here and I keep getting busier,” Garrido said. “I’m always having my eye out for the spot, a small spot with a drive thru. If something comes up and I’m out driving and I see a little spot with a drive thru, there’s a chance it may become another El Churro Spot.”