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Several weeks ago, my friend Greg Castillo and I visited a private home in Ennis for carnitas tacos. Greg, a video journalist, had found out about the business, Carnitas Conejo, on TikTok.
To get to the tacos, we walked up the driveway of Oscar Conejo and his wife, Juana Mendoza, underneath their carport, and onto their covered patio. There Conejo, a third-generation carnitero (carnitas master) and Michoacán native, cooked the pork in lard in three cazos (traditional pots). In one day, Conejo would sell up to 1,400 pounds of carnitas.
A young man chopped the finished pork and filled taco orders. At the back of the patio, a troop of women in aprons pulled masa from tubs and pressed them into large corn tortillas. The young man handed each of us a free taco to eat while we waited for our order. The appetizer prepped our palates with expertly braised pork—sweet and juicy, with a tender crust—and zippy salsa.
I didn’t think too much about the location, because the business was very similar to many restaurants in rural and suburban Mexico that are based in private homes and farms. Most allow customers to watch the cooking process and choose specific cuts, as I did at a small farm in the state of Hidalgo, where the owner-barbacoyero plucked a piece of lamb rib for me straight from the in-ground oven. He topped it with a dark red salsa studded with edible maguey worms, known as gusanos. Such establishments may be rarer in Texas, but they’re not uncommon. They do face certain consequences, though.
While our order was being prepared, Greg asked if he could record video footage of the cooking and interview Conejo for his social media accounts, on which he often showcases Dallas-area restaurants. The answer from Conejo and Mendoza was a happy yes. Greg posted his video a few days later, not thinking much of it since Carnitas Conjeo had active TikTok and Facebook pages.
A social media user who saw the video complained to the local health department, which swiftly shut the business down due to lack of a permit, according to Mendoza. (I reached out to the Ennis Health Department for confirmation but have not yet heard back.) Selling meat violates the Texas cottage food law, which limits in-home sales to shelf-stable foods.
“We knew this day was coming,” Mendoza told me when I spoke to her three days ago. “We think that someone didn’t like that we were selling food from our house,” Conejo added. Neither of them fretted, however. “We have a food truck, and a second one is opening soon,” Mendoza said.
Even though the couple opened their food truck three months ago, they kept operating out of their home because they “wanted a chance to give the public a taste of the flavor of Mexico,” Mendoza said. The couple posted about their weekend-only home service on TikTok and Facebook but didn’t expect many customers other than family members. But word of mouth and the social media posts spread. Soon business was booming, which also made Carnitas Conejo more vulnerable.
Oscar Conejo with his carnitas cooking in cazos.Photograph by José R. Ralat
Greg posted a follow-up video about the closure encouraging folks to check out the truck, which I did the following weekend. The line was intimidatingly long. A young woman walked down it, writing orders on pieces of blue paper, which she handed to the customers. “Give this to them at the window,” she repeated to each person in line. A friend and I waited a reasonable 26 minutes to get to the truck’s window and 10 minutes for our tacos. Nine workers were packed inside the mobile rig. Mendoza was bagging orders at the take-out window and calling names. When I walked up to her, I saw her smiling.
The friendly service was similar to that at Carnitas Conejo’s backyard iteration. The tacos were just as juicy and slick, but they weren’t as hot as when the employees would hand them to you straight from the cazo. I was ecstatic about the family’s continued success despite the interruption, even though I was still upset that we’d lost their special home restaurant.
It wasn’t all that different from buying food at a street stall or tamales from a truck in a supermarket parking lot. Everything at Carnitas Conejo was open for customers to see, and I witnessed the hygiene and the meticulous care each worker took with the food and their other duties. It had to be that way—no one wants a sick customer. Fortunately, places that get shut down sometimes rebound quickly due to the loyal customer bases they’ve built.
El Grandpa Barbacoa, in Georgetown, although not a home restaurant, experienced a similar run-in with the local authorities. The Vargas family was selling its lamb barbacoa tacos in an unincorporated section of Williamson County, and its lines rivaled those at other barbecue joints. The owners also used social media to drum up business, which brought the food influencers out as well. El Grandpa closed in November 2023 because county health inspectors said the business didn’t have the correct licensing. The Vargas family rebuilt everything to code, got the right permits, and reopened with their wood-and-charcoal-fired hornos (ovens) in a trailer in March 2024. The long lines and the content creators returned.
I understand food-safety regulations and their importance to public health. They are part of my job. I take them seriously. (I’m kind of a germaphobe too.) But as long as one understands the risks, they should get to enjoy the intimate experience of enjoying home cooking in a stranger’s backyard. Whenever I hear of such places, I definitely visit—just don’t expect me to write or post about it.
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