Lolita's a haven for hungry students, muddy vehicles

By Chris Boehm

September 20, 2007

For Dominic Dukes, there’s one place in town to fill up on breakfast. A sparkling pickup truck is just an added bonus.

Lolita’s Café on Aquarena Springs Drive is home to every college student’s dream: cheap, fast breakfast tacos. That’s why Dukes, a marketing senior, makes it a point to stop by at least three times a week and pick up four bacon, egg and cheese tacos. But last week he swung by the taco stand for a different reason. He wanted to wash his truck.

“I’ve been coming here to for the car wash since the weather’s been good,” Dukes said. “But the main reason I go here is for the tacos. They’re good.”

The café is also home to Lolita’s Car Wash Service, forging a weird amalgamation of businesses that owner Marta Roman said isn’t so disparate after all.

“They’re not really different,” Roman said. “People come here to get change for the car wash and they smell the food. It’s two things in one.”

Roman took over the taco stand in 2005 from her former boss, who could not meet rent payments. When it came time to rename the taco stand Roman chose to make the restaurant a part of her family.

“It’s named after my daughter,” Roman said. “But that’s also the name of my grandmother and mother-in-law.”

She said the car wash generally makes $100 a day during the summer but the majority of profits (roughly $800-900 a day) come from regulars craving traditional Mexican breakfast tacos.

Roman said some people, many Texas State students, will stop by as often as seven times a week or twice a day. Dukes usually will grab food there with co-workers from Texas State’s golf course.

“I’m not sure about that combination,” Dukes said. “I don’t know much about the car wash business. I know that taco stand makes a lot of money.”

customer waving

Micael Jones and Alyssa Sudduth waive goodbye after purchasing tacos.

The stand has been in business for over 10 years; Roman came to San Marcos in 1994 from California, and started working there. Back then it sold hamburgers.

The business then switched over to chilidogs and tacos under Roman’s previous boss, but they dropped the hot dogs after seeing what worked.

“Everybody wants breakfast tacos,” said Christina Brune, a waitress at Mamacita’s, a Tex-Mex restaurant across from Lolita’s.

Many of Mamacita’s employees such as Brune will eat breakfast at the café before their restaurant opens for lunch. But the waitress confessed she had never utilized the cafe’s other service.

“I actually didn’t even know the two were connected,” Brune said. “I have no idea why they would want a car wash with a taqueria with a car wash. That’s kind of weird.”

Roman also eats at Mamacita’s at times, where general manager Walter Ortiz said there is never any animosity or sense of competition between the two sides.

“She’s just another beautiful customer at Mamacita’s,” Ortiz said.

In comparison, Ortiz said Mamacita’s brings in $9,000 to $10,000 a day and double that on the weekends. But Lolita’s has stood the test of time over the past 11 years, when Mamacita’s has been in San Marcos, by offering a different niche in the business.

“I’d eat here. It’s fast convenient.” Dukes said of Lolita’s. “If I wanted to sit down or had a date I might go to Mamacita’s. But I have a regular girlfriend, so that’s already taken care of.”

Roman said in the future she may close down the car wash, which her husband runs, and expand the restaurant.
The car wash and taco stand went to Roman when the late Rusty Bryant sold her the business last year before he passed away a month ago. She said she was thankful for what she called a “gift”, and has stayed in communication with Bryant’s wife, Berdie.

“They were like angels for us,” Roman said. “We started with nothing and they helped us with everything at the start.”