For years, Isabel Garcia Luna served Downtown Iowa City customers through a window inside a small truck in the Pedestrian Mall called Luna’s Tacos. On Jan. 19, she stood in a familiar position but in a different place — still serving tacos and Mexican cuisine in Iowa City but from inside a brick-and-mortar restaurant on 127 E. Washington St.
The day of their soft opening, customers slowly trickled in and out of the restaurant, and Luna talked to each one of them from across the counter as she dished them food. The narrow storefront, once home to a Subway, now features the aroma of her cooking, a cozy couch Luna is proud of, and excited to have her own comfortable seating with a variety of seating and plants.
Connor Jenkins, co-owner of Kindred Coffee, has been a longtime customer of Luna’s, even coming to support her on the day of her soft opening and bringing his family with him.
“I’m so proud,” Jenkins said. “I’m so proud of both [Luna and her husband]. I know it was a lot of work. They told me they were thinking of opening a while ago. I know, it just takes a long time and a lot of effort, but that food speaks for itself. It’s delicious.”
The restaurant came after complications renewing Luna’s permit to park her food truck on the Pedestrian Mall. Every three years, food trucks are required to renew the permit for their spot, but this time, Luna said it was denied.
Luna said she went to city hall and kept asking for her permit, eventually getting it back but realized the city could change its mind at any time, leaving her without a livelihood.
Luna said her location was essential to her business, with the nighttime crowd being her primary customers, typically operating from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
“If you go to park on the east side of the city, it doesn’t have the same people,” Luna said. “My food is at nighttime, after the bars, when the students come out. If I go park at Walmart or Leonard’s, it’s not going to be the same.”
In 2024, her husband Salatiel Luna left his job working at Panda Express to support the business, allowing them to go to more festivals and events to sell food. However, when their permit denied, their family was left vulnerable.
Luna first started working in 2019 at the Iowa City Farmers Market after leaving her job as a medical assistant at the University of Iowa Health Care due to her son’s autism diagnosis.
“All we got is dependent on the food,” Luna said. “Our house, our mortgage, my son’s therapies, my son’s school — everything. We decided we needed something secure. This building is what that is. This is a secure income.”
Luna said it was difficult for her and her husband to take time off work to take their son to his therapy appointments, and it was too hard to find a babysitter who was able to meet her son’s needs, so she quit her position at the hospital.
She began looking for a job that would allow her to attend her son’s therapy meetings while still financially supporting her family, with a friend encouraging her to work at the farmers’ market.
“So I went back home, and I talked to my family about it,” she said. “Then my family goes, ‘What are you gonna do? Because you worked in medical. You don’t know anything.’ So I remember my husband and I, we went to Walmart, and we bought a blue canopy. And [my] little girls and I took all my spoons and towels from my house, and then we went to the farmer’s market Wednesday.”
That first Wednesday, Luna said almost nothing sold the entire morning from her food truck, and as she waited, she began to give up on the idea. Eventually, one woman came up to her and asked her what she was selling. The woman bought food from her and left. A few minutes later, people started lining up, and Luna said, to this day, she still doesn’t know why.
After that first week, Luna said a line formed every Wednesday, and she quickly became a regular vendor. Over the next four years, Luna and her husband ran the food truck at festivals, markets, and late-night spots downtown, learning how to balance customer demand with long hours and unpredictable weather.
As Luna’s business continues, she hopes to make a space where her son can eventually work.
“We don’t know if he will be able to go to college or do some career,” Luna said. “I learned that a lot of people with this disability don’t really get appreciated, they don’t get paid the same way everybody else gets paid.”
Luna recalled past experiences at restaurants where her son was told to “shut up,” and they faced discrimination from other customers and restaurants. As Luna grows her business, she said she hopes those with disabilities are able to come to Luna’s Tacos and feel welcomed.
“I don’t want people here unappreciated,” she said. “I want people to feel [at] home. We are all the same. Yeah, we are the same. Doesn’t matter what color you are, what ways you are, how good or bad you are.”
Now, in her first brick-and-mortar location, Luna has expanded her menu; however, she predicts even more change on the horizon, with new offerings weekly.
New menu items include her family’s favorite dishes: albondigas, chicken meatballs simmered in chipotle sauce; A La Mexicana, pork salsa verde; chiles rellenos, roasted peppers stuffed with cheese or tofu; and birria, a traditional Mexican stew slow-cooked with chiles and spices.
This summer, Luna hopes to operate both the food truck Thursday to Saturday at night and the restaurant Sunday to Friday, as well as the Iowa City Farmers Market. Even with so much support and planning, she said stepping into a permanent space comes with its own worries.
“I am a little bit scared, but everybody is afraid,” she said. “[Afraid I] don’t make the expectations of the community. I am always a person who likes to go above and beyond. I’m planning to do a lot of stuff, like I’m planning to do the market. But I don’t know if I can do that. And so I don’t feel so comfortable.”
Many customers are excited about the new space. Iowa City resident Fifi Odhiambo said she’s thrilled for the restaurant’s new, more permanent location.
“The service is always great,” Odhiambo said. “They stand out because there’s such friendly people working there. I’m glad they have a building, and I think they can do more with the space, like letting people socialize. It’s exciting to have another long-lasting taco spot downtown.”
