For 40 years, Pedro’s Tamales has been proudly serving up Lubbock its tasty tamales, tacos, burritos and more. However, its reach goes beyond the Hub City.
It’s not a typical sit-down restuarant, but that doesn’t stop customers from rolling up to the drive-thru in truck loads to place an order with Pedro’s.
Mark Stewart of San Angelo visits Lubbock often to see his father, and those trips always involve a pit stop at Pedro’s.
“Anytime I’m in Lubbock,” says Stewart. “I’ve been ordering them [Pedro’s tamales] for 20 years. They’re wonderful.”
Kristina Baum of Lubbock is also a faithful Pedro’s fan/customer, sharing with us that it was a favorite among her and her friends during their college years.
“I’ve been coming here for about 10 years, since I was a student a Texas Tech,” said Baum, also highly recommending the spicy beef tamales.
Fernando Garcia, manager of Pedro’s Tamales, has worked there for 25 years, and says seeing the local business become so successful first-hand has been a rewarding experience. However, it’s not something that happened over night. For years, the business has pride itself in making their foods the old-fashioned way.
“We can produce anywhere between five to 10,000 dozens a day, but each one is still invidually hand-wrapped. So, that’s what kind of sets us apart from a lot of other companies,” said Garcia. “Most cooks know that putting in a lot of love into it would be one of the things. I mean our cooks really take a lot of attention to what they’re doing and they reallly put a lot of work into it.”
And just like all legendary foods, lies a secret recipe. Garcia couldn’t reveal all the details, but gave us a hint: that it’s in the maza.
“Pedro’s secret recipe of course!” laughed Garcia. “There is a unique, certain recipe ratio we use in the maza in the corn. I can’t give that away of coures, it’s a little bit different.”
Pedro’s currently ships to all 50 states, and the egendary tamales have also entertained the taste buds of Hollywood’s elite. Celebrities like George Clooney, Reba McEntire and Jay Leno have all ordered from Pedro’s, but it doesn’t stop there: they have also traveled to the White House per request of President George W. Bush for his inauguration dinner.
Despite their nationwide success, the business stays grounded and proud of its Lubbock roots. Garcia says they try to get involved with as many community and Texas Tech events as possible to show their support of other local businesses and oganizations.
“Working for Pedro’s is a real family-oriented environment. That’s probably one of my favorie things right there, besides eating the tamales of course,” said Garcia. “You can’t really get tired of those [the tamales], but it’s the people. The people there, there’s been a lot of people who have been a long time, some of them 30 plus years.”
This year, Pedro’s will be celebrating 40 years in the Hub City. Garcia says their main goals for the year are to expand their headquarters, continue serving up their famous tasty foods and even roll out the latest product they have been working on: chocolate tamales.
If this story, made you hungry, here is the number to place an order for Pedro’s Tamales: 806-745-9531.
