Luz Estrella Velasco has lived in the United States for about 25 years, but her English isn’t the best.

And while I could brag about my 84-day streak on Duolingo, my Spanish isn’t, either.

I have to admit, though, all that app work helped when we sat down at a table alongside her food truck on a breezy Saturday morning.

My father was Spanish-fluent, maintaining the language he’d learned in Cuba via steady conversation with the immigrants he hired to work in his kitchen over the years. A few even stayed with us for a time, young newcomers whose eventual fluency began by watching “The Flintstones” alongside a third grader. Sometimes, they’d color with me.

Language barriers, I learned young, aren’t barriers to human connection.

So it went for me and Velasco. We talked a bit, each with our limited capacity. And we set up a call.

The servers at Taqueria Estrella are largely Spanish-only, too (on the days I visited, at least), but have a little more English than Velasco. They are all lovely, friendly, unbothered by my lack of fluency and butchery of tenses.

Luz Estrella Velasco’s food truck, Taqueria Estrella, is open six days a week outside the Mexican Consulate on Orlando’s west side. She’s been operating there since 2012. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

After all, if I want to be conversational, I have to conversate.

And the fear of trying out a new language is easy to overcome when the reward is a torta stuffed with pastor-style pork, where soft bread meets savory meat and fresh dressings, crisp and creamy. A little hot sauce and a pineapple agua fresca, pulpy with shreds of fruit, and I’m good.

Una torta de pastor from the Taqueria Estrella food truck. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

I learned about the truck from a friend who works nearby; it’s a regular stop for his office crew. I’m always up for taco exploration, but when I heard that Velasco’s was a permanent fixture, six days a week, outside of the Mexican Consulate, I couldn’t imagine a better endorsement.

On our call, I learned that she’s been selling here since 2012, but more on that later.

Velasco grew up in the State of Chiapas, within sight of the Pacific Ocean and about as far into Mexico as you can get. Her father owned a seafood restaurant, where she worked for a time, but in 2001, she came to the States, moving from year-round warmth to Nebraska, where her first job was shoveling snow in a McDonald’s parking lot.

A trio of tacos from Taqueria Estrella: barbacoa, chorizo and asada. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

She moonlighted with custodial work at a local mall, and six months later, sent for her kids: Evelyn, then 8, Alondra, 6, and Evelmar (known mostly as “Junior”), who was about 2.

Along with their dad, the family spent four years in the Cornhusker State (Velasco had been promoted to the drive-thru by then, a guide helped her take orders by number) before a job offer brought them to the Orlando metro.

Alondra Alvarez Velasco, now 30, helped facilitate the call and remembers the way her mom dug in hard to build a business while her father worked construction.

Best Tacos: 2025 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards

“I’d go around in my van to different sites and offer food to the people who worked there,” Velasco says. “I’d take orders, go right back home, cook it and bring it back for lunch. I’d do this in Orlando, Kissimmee, Poinciana, Clermont. All the places that are in Clermont now were being built at that time. There was a lot of work going on.”

“We were picky as children,” her daughter tells me. “We wouldn’t eat anyone else’s food because we thought our mom’s was the best in the world.”

Many workers at the sites must have agreed. Before long, Velasco had not only built a following in these industrious circles but also an extra 20 or so “regulars,” who either didn’t cook themselves or worked too many hours to do so.

Tamales are a Saturdays-only thing at Taqueria Estrella, and there were plenty of folks partaking when I stopped in. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

“They’d come to the house and pick up their dinners,” her daughter recalls. “Some would come again at 5 a.m. for breakfast, too.”

All of this alongside a regular job at Los Paises, a local supermarket/restaurant on West Colonial.

When their dad left, things got even tighter. For a time, they had nowhere to live.

“We had to get our clothes and other things from the church,” her mother says, but with tips from the restaurant, she was able to buy food for the side business, and slowly, she saved.

Truck owner Luz Estrella Velasco has made tamales every single weekend since at least 2011, her daughter tells me. Probably longer. That’s a good enough reason to pop in on a Saturday to try them. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

Success, she chuckles, came from tamales.

“I have made tamales every single weekend of my life.”

All the more reason to stop in on Saturdays, the only day you can get them at Taqueria Estrella, but often, as the weather cools, they’re offered on weekdays, as well.

Chicken-stuffed, with mole or salsa roja, it’s what’s for lunch. And if you’re me, also a sope de cabeza. And some flan. Daughter Evelyn helps with desserts. Their’s is a dense version, rich and eggy. Not too sweet. And certainly not as sweet as when Velasco had finally saved enough for the truck: $10,000.

Luz Estrella Velasco, in pink, and her eldest daughter, Evelyn, work the truck. (Courtesy Taqueria Estrella)

Her daughter cries, recounting mom’s words. “She says she felt like the richest person alive.”

Not rich enough for a slick, new truck, though.

Instead, she found one on the verge of the junkpile in Miami. With kids in tow, she drove the heap back home.

“It was always just the four of us, and it was that way on the ride back,” her daughter tells me, noting how proud they all are of their mother. “It kept breaking down and took us almost 12 hours to make the trip.”

Velasco did most of the refurbishing herself.

“It took forever to clean the griddle; it was so rusty. I scraped it every day for a month,” she says. “I painted the truck white with house paint and a roller.”

At the outset, she found a spot on Old Winter Garden Road, but her eldest daughter’s issues with school (“she had graduated at the top of her class, but was having trouble getting her studies validated”) saw Velasco making multiple trips to the consulate, seeking help. Staffers got to know her.

“I told them about starting up my food truck business,” she says, “but because I was coming there so often, I was losing days.”

“Why don’t you park it here?” they offered.

Business was slow at first, as was the service.

There are several desserts available from the Taqueria Estrella food truck, all homemade. The flan was dense and eggy, rich and delicious. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

“I couldn’t afford to hire anyone, so I was the cashier, the server, the cook … I would charge them first so they couldn’t leave,” she laughs.

But soon, not only were consulate workers coming, but those who came from all over the state to do business. Same goes for members of the Orlando fire and sheriff’s departments, who Velasco says have been great supporters. She also began to do catering jobs, big ones.

“She still couldn’t hire anyone,” her daughter says, “so she would dress the three of us in uniforms and we’d help her serve and clean up. This way, we could bring more money home.”

My lunch buddy may be the one who told me about the Taqueria Estrella food truck, but he doesn’t often stray from his favorite, the chicken quesadilla. I was happy to go off-road on his behalf. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)

These days, the check comes at the end of your meal at Taqueria Estrella, which operates like a full-service restaurant. She has two food trucks now. And eight employees. Days ago, it was 10, but two had to go back to Mexico.

“The things that have been going on lately have affected the business,” her daughter says. “Many customers come from 2-3 hours away, and a lot of them are scared to travel now. Business for the consulate has gone down.”

Wonderful Hand-Pulled Noodle is swinging for the fences | Review

On the days I showed up, lunch was pretty robust. Tables are communal. Pop-up tents offer shade. Flags, faded into soft, sherbet-like colors, flap overhead.

On Saturday, I am alone. I slide into an empty seat at one end. At the other end, parents sit with two young boys.

One smiles a welcome. His lips, wet with agua fresca, reveal a missing front tooth. It’s a great smile, a universal language.

I wish my Spanish were better, but my dad wasn’t around much to teach me. He worked seven days a week for most of my childhood. The Velascos’ story resonates.

Left to right: Luz Estrella Velasco, owner of Taqueria Estrella, and her three children: Alondra, Evelyn and Evelmar (“Junior”).(Courtesy Taqueria Estrella)

My grandmother is the immigrant in mine, but even if you have to go back 10 or more generations in your own story, it probably has one, too.

“It’s been very hard,” Velasco tells me. “There have been times I wanted to throw in the towel and give up. But then I go to work, and I see people who buy my food and genuinely enjoy it … I get emotional. This is what I do it for.

“All glory to God,” she says.

Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.

If you go

Taqueria Estrella: 2550 Technology Drive in Orlando, 407-692-7560 

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/11/06/taqueria-estrella-review-amy-drew-thompson/