La Nortena Tamale Factory — Restaurant in Pecos

La Norteña Tortilla Factory is like many businesses in west Texas. When times are good so are they, when times are bad......wait for it.......they are horrible. I have purchased food from La Norteña for two decades and they have their up's and down's. This is as low as I have ever seen them. We went there last week and ordered food for lunch. Here is the breakdown.

Menudo: You might as well call it "Corn Soup". 1 quart of Menudo had 5 pieces of meat, 1 cup of white corn and liquid. Although, the soup flavor was tasty, we wanted more of what made it tasty.

Chile Verde: Very spicy and coagulated with grease and lumps of something unidentifiable.

Spanish Rice: Horrible. Tasteless flecks of orangish white matter. It could have been paper for all I know.

Tortillas: This is the real bad part. You order food and are told to buy cold tortillas from the refrigerator. What? We opened the corn tortillas and they were covered in mold. The flour tortillas smelled like the inside of a unclean refrigerator.

Pinto Beans: Alright flavor and undercooked. A hard bean in every bite.

We threw the food away in a trash can at the rest stop just east of Pecos. What a horrible experience. That will be my last time to go to La Norteña....

We arrived ravenous five minutes before closing on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t even like tamales (or so I thought) but my wife loves them so I ran in and ordered a dozen along with two tacos (chicken fajita and barbacoa). Immediately I was met by a delightful woman who noticed I was pregnant (and very hungry) and set about helping me with my order even though they were closing for the day.

The tacos were full of tasty meat and the salsa was spicy and flavourful, and the tamales were fantastic! My wife says they’re the best tamales she’s ever had and I am now converted. We ate them all the way back to Dallas (7 hours!) and decided we’d had such an enjoyable experience in this surprising pit stop on our road trip that we’d write our first google review.

As I was leaving, the gentleman that my wife had been chatting to through the drive up window (maybe the owner?) came through to give me some guava empanadas for the road. It cheered up our long journey and we will always remember the excellent tamales and tacos of Pecos and the kind people who...

Highly highly recommend their tamales - I tried their green chile chicken and pork tamales and they were some of the best I've ever had.

That being said, they can work a little bit harder on their customer service. There are two lines, one for ordering and one for pickup, I placed and paid for my order online. I waited at pickup with no acknowledgement to ask if I was picking up an order, even though there were three employees at front. Ended up having to wait 10 minutes in line just to receive my order that was already ready.

Second, I asked if I could have togo utensils and the lady at the register said everything I needed was in the bag. Well, there was NO silverware, so the rice and beans I ordered ended up going to waste.

Optional plates and utensils would be a great addition for your customers who do not live in Pecos so they can eat in their car.

Your tamales really are the star here. I plan on coming again in the...