Inside a woman’s fight to save her family’s tortilla business in a historic Tucson barrio

Gracie Soto’s first memories were in her grandparents’ market.

She would fall asleep under the cash register to the cacophony of laughter and chatter with customers. Her grandmother, who she called “nana,” would make her special red chilli sauce and burritos with handmade tortillas — the gigantic Sonoran-style “sobaqueras.”

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To Soto, Anita’s Street Market represents everything she had ever loved: food, community and family.

So in 2022, when Soto was dealt with a financial blow that almost destroyed her beloved market, she knew she had to fight back. What she didn’t know is how much she would have to sacrifice to save her family’s legacy.

Anita’s Street Market becomes a staple on Tucson’s West side

The Sotos have been hand-making tortillas and burritos at Anita’s Street Market for over 40 years.

Soto’s grandparents, Mario and Grace, began running the business in 1984. The market is housed in a historic building constructed in 1936 that was originally used as a Chinese grocery store.

With her “nana’s” recipe for red chilli sauce and talent at making arm-length-sized “sobaqueras,” and her “tata’s” work ethic and business sense, the market became a roaring success.

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“I would never change my upbringing for anything in this world because this is my home and I was raised here,” she said.

She remembered being little and looking over the counter to see her grandparents run the register and develop relationships with their customers.

“It was always beautiful. It’s just a lot of work and it was just witnessing history in the making without even knowing it yet,” Soto said.

Grandparents’ deaths lead to financial troubles

Both her grandparents worked until right before they died. Her “tata” died in 2008, and then her “nana” passed in 2020 from complications with COVID-19.

“He spent literally his last day here, in his walker, tired from dialysis,” Soto said, her eyes welling up from tears. “All his customers are what gave him life.”

After his death, her grandmother took charge of the market, leaning more heavily on an accountant for the paperwork side of the business that her husband had previously handled.

They eventually fired the accountant, following numerous instances of suspicious behavior. Soto said she “couldn’t put her finger on it,” but she had a feeling something was wrong.

Then in 2022, those feelings came to bear. Still reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business, Soto learned the Internal Revenue Service was threatening to put a lien on Anita’s Street Market for unpaid payroll taxes as far back as 2009. The business owed $270,000.

“I was so angry and upset and confused,” Soto said. She thought about giving up the business and began struggling with her mental health.

But she heard her grandparents’ voices in her head, telling her to fight. So, she did.

To pay off the debt, she obtained a loan from a private lender. Soto used part of the loan to pay the taxes, and the rest to update the kitchen equipment to keep up production to serve its contracts with local Mexican restaurants.

As things were looking up, another hit to her business came in 2023. The Tucson Fire Department ordered her to make substantial repairs to her ovens to meet compliance standards. She had to temporarily close, causing her to fall behind on mortgage payments to the private lenders.

“My bills were just getting just higher and higher, and I’m like trying to keep it open, trying to survive. It was the craziest time in my life,” Soto said.

At the same time, her lenders were trying to foreclose on the market. She worked with lawyers, filed for bankruptcy and worked to stay open.

The stress and financial hardship became too hard to handle. At one point, she lost her house and ended up in the hospital multiple times while trying to juggle mortgages and bills.

With help from her friends and the community, she picked herself up and is working to buy her store back.

In 2023, customers donated and set up a GoFundMe, raising $11,000 to help Soto stay open.

Anita’s named an endangered Latinx landmark

Now that Soto has been able to move on from fighting to repay the private lenders, she is focusing on building back her business and trying to build capital to hire help and make much-needed repairs to her building.

In September, Anita’s Street Market was listed as an endangered Latinx landmark. It was one of 13 sites across the country, and the only one inArizona.

This year, the market also won a $50,000 historic preservation grant to help with outside improvements, like building a shade structure and making the backyard space usable.

Rikki Riojas is the executive director of Los Descendientes de Tucson, a nonprofit that works to promote and preserve the historical places and traditions of the founding cultures of Tucson. She worked to get the market the grant and be listed on the list of endangered Latinx landmarks.

“This is one of the types of spaces that we’re really losing the barrios,” Riojas said.

Riojas’ goal was to bring much-needed attention and potentially future funding for the other improvements the building needs to have covered by the grant, such as plumbing, the leaking roof and the HVAC system.

“As we’re continuing to see gentrification and these developers move in and demolish old buildings … this is one of those spaces that’s the last holdout and Gracie’s really been fighting to preserve that.”

Sarah Lapidus covers southern Arizona politics and issues for The Arizona Republic. Reach her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Inside a woman’s fight to save her family’s tortilla business in a historic Tucson barrio

Reporting by Sarah Lapidus, Arizona Republic / Arizona Republic