Three al pastor tacos with charred pineapple on a hand painted talavera plate, papel picado and a striped serape on the table
Family taqueria · Alvarado Street · Since 1994
La

CENTELLA

Tacos con chispa.

Nixtamal pressed fresh every morning, a trompo that never stops turning, and a window that stays open long after everyone else has gone home.

Call (555) 018 2043 See tonight's tickets
Window till 2 AM Fri + Sat Corn tortillas, pressed to order No delivery app markups
4:00 PM

The board fills, the comal never cooled, and the first tickets go up on the wall.

La hora dorada

The sun drops behind Alvarado. Mateo strings the bulbs before the dinner rush lands.

8:00 PM

Lights on, molcajetes out, the salsa bar is open. Keep going and pick your fire.

La barra de salsas

Pick your fire.

Four molcajetes, ground fresh every evening. Drag the chili, or tap a bowl, and the whole page starts to sweat with you.

8:00 PM The lights come on
Tap a salsa to taste
Four stone molcajete bowls lined up mild to fiery on a turquoise table: green tomatillo, orange habanero, red arbol, and dark morita salsa, string lights above
SUAVE

Verde de tomatillo

Roasted tomatillo and serrano, bright and tangy. Safe for the whole table, kids approved.

800
Scoville, more or less

That one comes with a waiver by the register. Mostly a joke. Mostly.

A vertical al pastor trompo crowned with pineapple, turning over open flame in a dark tiled kitchen
11:00 PM The trompo never stops

Two days of marinade. Ninety seconds to your hand.

Pork shoulder sits two full days in achiote, guajillo, and pineapple juice, then gets stacked onto the spit by hand before the window opens. It turns beside an open flame until the edge caramelizes, and we shave it straight onto a tortilla that came off the press seconds earlier. The pineapple rides on top, where it belongs.

48hIn the marinade
90sShave to plate
2amThe last cut
Order al pastor $3.75 a taco, at the window
I started with one window, one comal, and my mother's recipe. Everything else, we built onto that. Rosa Elena Reyes, founder
Tres generaciones, one window

A family recipe that grew a block.

Rosa Elena opened the first window on Alvarado Street in 1994, cooking off a single comal with recipes carried from Michoacan. Her son Mateo took over the trompo in 2009 and still trims it the way she taught him.

Her daughter Camila runs the front counter and presses every tortilla by hand before six each morning. Nothing here is built for a delivery app. The salsas are ground in small batches, and the window stays open late because the neighborhood asked it to.

1994The window opens
2009Mateo takes the trompo
HoyCamila presses at dawn
ABIERTO

Hasta las 2 AM.

Call the window and your order is hot when you walk up. No app, no middleman, no markup. Just the light on the corner and someone shouting your number.

Order ahead Get directions

1428 Alvarado Street, at the corner of 14th. Look for the papel picado.

(555) 018 2043 The window line, it rings in the kitchen

Window hours

  • Monday to Thursday11 AM, 11 PM
  • Friday + Saturday11 AM, 2 AM
  • Sunday12 PM, 10 PM

The late window runs Friday and Saturday for whoever needs tacos after everyone else has closed.