Keep on truckin’: One vendor quickly replaces another
Staff writer
After one Mexican food truck, Mis Viejos, fled Marion, alleging harassment from local business owners, it was surprising to see another take its place so quickly.
But Marisol Guzman and her husband, Guadalupe, have been manning their truck for six years, and aren’t afraid of intimidation.
“I hear a lot of things,” Guzman said. “One guy came last week, asked me if I had my permits, my license. But we have all that. I’m not worried.”
Guzman’s truck appeared elsewhere in the county before it began appearing in Marion on Sundays.
In a typical week, it travels to McPherson, Florence, Peabody, Walton, and Newton.
Guzman and her husband are originally from Matamoros, Mexico. They have an extensive background in food service.
“I worked a few times in a restaurant,” she said. “One was Mexican; another was Applebee’s. And I liked the people.”
Guzman then took to selling tortas and quesadillas under a tent using the moniker Tortas Mary.
“It was difficult,” Guzman said. “It’s in the air. People are looking at you while you are cooking. It’s very weird.”
In 2019, she had a chance to buy her own food truck trailer.
“That came as a surprise, the trailer,” she said. “Somebody offered to sell. At first we thought we couldn’t do it, but a very good friend helped.”
She kept the Tortas Mary name, “Mary” being an Americanization of “Marisol,” a Spanish name meaning “sun and sea.”
Guadalupe helped her to expand her menu to include tacos and burritos.
He does most of the cooking in the back of the truck.
“He says he works for me,” Guzman laughed.
Operating a food truck is different from running a restaurant or other brick-and-mortar business.
“Every single day I go to new places,” Guzman said.
Her truck is open five to six days a week, usually from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
During summers, she recruits her two children to help, and travels even more around Kansas, taking Tortas Mary to fairs and car shows.
That working schedule doesn’t include time spent driving or purchasing food.
Guzman was shopping at Wal-Mart in Wichita while speaking to the Record over the phone.
“Other people, they buy from Sysco or some company, and they make a lot of food,” she said. “I don’t buy like that. I go by day. I sold food yesterday, then I buy the stuff I need for the next day.”
This strategy of buying new food nearly every day might not make sense financially, but having fresher ingredients is no doubt good for quality.
“Tortas Mary takes pride in fresh bread and veggies,” Wichita-based blogger Trenton Prichard wrote in a 2023 review.
Guzman still is making payments on her truck trailer, and doesn’t have much money saved up.
“It gets hard,” she said. “Sometimes we struggle. But we’re doing good. We love the business.”
As with many food truck vendors, she is willing to travel almost anywhere if she knows there will be customers.
“If someone calls me in Manhattan or Wichita, I go,” she said. “I’m not picky. I tell my husband, ‘let’s go.’”
That strategy seems to have paid off in Marion, where Guzman has been met with long lines each of her first three Sundays.
On her first day in town, she sold out an hour early.
“Everyone is really friendly, and they give me a lot of support,” she said.
People have told Guzman they want her in town more often.
Again, she laughs. She has other places to be.
“For now, only Sundays.”