3 million tortillas and counting
Feeding people is Nora Avila’s calling
Levi Hill/News-Sun
Every morning for 40 years, Nora Avila, 67, wakes up at 2:30 in the morning and by 3 a.m. she’s at her restaurant making tortillas.
At a rate of an average 300 tortillas a day for 40 years, Avila has made an estimated 3.1 million giant, fluffy tortillas that wrap up the breakfast goodness that makes Avila’s Nipa Hut burritos so special.
“I just love it. I’m not here to get rich,” Avila said of her daily grind to churn out the best breakfast burritos around. “I just love my customers. My burritos go to Colorado, Houston, Lubbock, all over.”
Indeed, they do. Avila has standing orders every Thursday for 27 burritos for one client who takes them to Houston. Many days, she finds herself hand-rolling an additional 100-200 tortillas.
The work starts so early because Avila makes the tortillas completely by hand. The dough is measured out and made by memory, which Avila said she sometimes misses on. But it’s an instinct. She rolls every single tortilla eaten by hand.
“I don’t measure. I just do it. Sometimes (the tortillas) are OK, sometimes not, but people don’t seem to complain,” Avila said.
But that’s not exactly true either. Maybe it’s the love, but customers know when Avila isn’t the one rolling the tortillas.
“I’ve had some of my sisters-in-law help me roll the dough and customers will come back and say they don’t taste the same,” Avila laughs. “I made the dough, they just helped roll it, but customers say they taste a difference.”
The history of Nipa Hut goes back more than 40 years. It was originally founded and owned by a couple named Ken and Lydia and was a sandwich and pizza shop for years. When the couple retired and moved to Kansas, they sold the business to Avila’s mother, who made the transition to breakfast burritos.
“We just kept the name,” Avila said. “This was my mom’s dream and I just took it up after she retired.”
Avila said she gets to bed most nights around 9 or 10 p.m. and is up by 2:30 a.m. to head to work. It’s a toll for someone pushing 70, but not one she can walk away from — not for long at least.
“I retired for a couple months and people were calling me all the time asking if we were going to reopen,” she said.
Nipa Hut closed in April but, before May was over, Avila was back in the kitchen — she couldn’t give it up.
“I needed to come back to work,” she said. “I love my customers. I love when they come in and give me a hug and all that.”
Avila broke her arm in June and that shut the business down again for several months. By August they were back at it again and, based on word-of-mouth alone, the customers came flooding back in for the famous “Grumpy.”
The “Grumpy,” a massive breakfast burrito filled with all the meats is a fan favorite, accounts for more than half all the burritos sold, Avila said.
The “Grumpy” is a legacy all its own, honoring the memory of one of the grumpiest customers to ever eat a Nipa Hut burrito.
“We had a customer who was always so grumpy and when my sister saw him coming, she would say, ‘Here comes Grumpy,’” Avila said. She said the man always wanted more in his burrito. One day, to pacify him, they stuffed a burrito with every meat option and a legend was born.
Avila and her three sisters ran the business for a number of years, but they all eventually went on to different jobs. Since then, Avila has conscripted her children and grandchildren into the business, even great-grandchildren. Five generations have worked inside the small shop on Dal Paso in the Stripes building.
Today, Avila’s daughter, Yvonne Villalobos, runs the grill while Avila rolls out the tortillas. Growing up in the business was like being home, Villalobos said, and she loved it. Her children love it too and so do her grandchildren.
“I loved it because we were little and we wanted to work the cash register,” Villalobos said. “I can’t even remember a time we weren’t in here.”
Villalobos quit her job to help her mother with the business and, despite Avila’s abiding love for feeding people, it looks like the business will pass when Avila is done.
“Every day I want to quit,” Villalobos laughs. “But to me it is a blessing because I get to spend time with my mom every day.”
Avila said none of the other children or grandchildren show any interest in running the burrito shop. But for her, it’s a calling she can’t ignore.
“I am here until the good Lord says its time,” Avila said. “This is my place, right there. This is my happiness. I am at home.”
And it’s no wonder. Avila said some mornings while she’s rolling dough at 4 a.m. while most people are sleeping, she can often feel her mom’s presence in the tiny kitchen.
“I do feel her here and sometimes my brother too. I can just picture him standing in the corner, leaning on the counter watching,” Avila said.
Nipa Hut is located at 1105 S. Dal Paso and is open 7 a.m.-noon. Call ahead orders can be placed at 575-393-0816 and can be recommended because, during peak hours, the business can often have a 45-minute wait for orders.
Avila said customers will often wait that long willingly for a burrito, and why not when you can come hungry, leave with a “Grumpy,” and be happy.
