Jesse's Tortilla Factory on Webster Avenue in Waco, Texas, has been making corn tortillas since Jesse and Esther Contreras opened it in 1958, and the couple's grandson, Santos Rodriguez Jr., now manages it, KWKT FOX 44 reported (opens in new tab) on Oct. 14 in a Hispanic Heritage Month profile. Rodriguez told the station the plant makes about 45,000 corn tortillas a day from corn, salt and lye that are cooked and ground into masa on site.
The family was in the tortilla trade even earlier. Esther's mother, Hermelinda Niño, ran Niño's Tortilla Factory in Waco, and Jesse delivered tortillas for it after leaving the Army, according to a Waco History profile (opens in new tab). Jesse died in 1989 of wounds from a robbery attempt at the store, and Esther kept the business going with help from her daughter, Alice Rodriguez, and grandson Santos. Waco History says Alice took over ownership after Esther's death in 2020.
In the Waco History profile, the whole process takes place inside the factory: corn from an on-site silo is cooked and soaked in lime water, ground into masa on a stone mill, then cut on a rolling machine and baked. About nine in ten finished tortillas are cut and fried into chips, the profile says, and most of the company's revenue comes from wholesale. The company's website (opens in new tab) says it supplies about 35 area restaurants, and it added weekday lunch plates in 2019.
The CenTex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce gave Jesse's its Business Excellence Award (opens in new tab) in 2025. The chamber said Santos's son, Orlando Rodriguez, has joined him at the plant, the fourth generation of the family to work there.
Jesse's Tortilla Factory