Luis Olvera is a determined taco maker. In 2016, his small taqueria on Singleton Road was named one of the best new restaurants in America by Bon Appetit (which actually might be a hex that we've previously reported on). For three years, he pushed tacos from the hole-in-the-wall space, then left for bigger confines.
In 2019, he moved into the trendy Bishop Arts District, serving an expanded menu in a busy area. Alas, he closed that spot in 2021 as the space was to be bulldozed. But that was fine because that year he opened another Trompo on Gaston Avenue in East Dallas.
In March 2022 he headed back to West Dallas where this taco dream began to open a ghost kitchen just off Sylvan Avenue. In May 2022 the East Dallas space closed, but that was fine because in September 2022 Olvera found a new home in Jefferson Towers on Jefferson Boulevard.
This week, Olvera announced on Instagram that this place has now also shuttered. There was a lockout notice posted on the door.
"I haven't seen the letter," Olvera says on the Instagram video. "Haven't read the letter. But the gist, the nutshell is that (...) Trompo got locked out of our location on Jefferson on Wednesday morning. So that means that Trompo's effectively dead, pretty much this is the end, right?"
That little tilt at the end — a question — is it though?
He says that business never really took off at the Jefferson location.
"There's a lot of people who did come and support and buy tacos, but the inevitable truth is that we couldn't get sales anywhere near where they've been in the past," Olvera says.
He's always been transparent about his wandering-but-not-lost taco dreams.
"Since 2014, every single year I have invested in a new property, new project, trying to find my permanent home, trying to find my forever home for Trompo," he says. It all proved to be a "little too much."
In a previous interview, Olvera told us that in the early days on Singleton, he was doing about $35,000 a month in sales. After the Bon Appetit nod, his sales quadrupled, "but it was very momentary because I didn't know how to capitalize on that."
"I've closed four times in six years," Olvera said in that interview in April last year. "My dad has asked me several times to close down."
After the announcement last week, however, social media had some suggestions, like starting a GoFundMe. Two days later with renewed energy Olvera posted a short video for his campaign to raise $36,000 in the next five days (through Friday, Jan. 12) to save his restaurant. As of noon on Monday, Jan. 8, he's met a solid $5,000 of that goal.
