New to the northwest corner of 11th Street Station in the blue trailer is the eatery Matamor Flautas y Mas.
The fledgling business that opened about three weeks ago is owned and operated by Ursula Mata and Joseph Moreno. The name Matamor is actually a combination of the couple’s last names.
Moreno said both he and Mata had wanted to open their own business after years working in the service industry.
“We already knew we wanted to do Mexican food, but we also knew we wanted to do something other than tacos and burritos,” he said. “We’re doing flautas, which are a roll in a corn tortilla.”
Primarily, Matamor serves flautas, but also other Mexican fare like quesadillas. So far, the best selling item on the menu is The Trio, which comes with three different flautas for $12.
“The Trio comes with one mesquite brisket flauta, a potato flauta in blue corn tortilla for the color contrast and a turkey picadillo flauta,” Moreno said.
After a chance meeting, Mata sold her home in Texas and hit the road in an RV with Moreno. The two traveled all over the western U.S. for months before choosing Durango as place to settle.
“We met back in San Antonio. We were both working in the restaurant industry, I was working at a brewery and I made her the wrong grilled cheese one day,” Moreno said. “I came out and made it right, I guess.”
“He messed it up, so I complained,” Mata said.
Mata said she and Moreno were done with big city life in San Antonio and wanted to find a smaller town like Durango to start their business.
Mata and Moreno stopped at 11th Street Station for a meal and some drinks one day and noticed the open trailer. Within a week, they had decided to move into the trailer and start Matamor. Mata said that from the day they met with the owner of 11th Street Station about the trailer to the day they were ready to open was only 11 days.
“We came by one day, and we saw a post on the trailer,” she said. “The next week we talked with the owner and he showed us the trailer, and after that we went home and said, ‘Let’s just do it. There’s never a right time, so let’s do it.’”
Moreno said business has been good in the first few weeks, and they’ve already sold close to 1,000 flautas.
“Reception has been really good. People are curious what we’re selling, and we’re excited to talk about what we’re making,” Moreno said.
Mata said that as a business they like to focus on producing fresh foods.
“We make everything, nothing is precooked,” she said. “Our salsas are hearty, beautiful and tasty.”
njohnson@durangoherald.com
