Ninfa’s
Uptown

When Mama Ninfa Laurenzo first began grilling skirt steak then placing the sizzling meat in a handmade flour tortilla, all from inside her family’s struggling tortilla factory in Houston’s East End, she had no idea she had jumpstarted a culinary revolution. It was 1973, her husband Domenic had just passed away, and Mama Ninfa was cooking to take care of her children – and provide her beloved community mouthwatering comfort food along the way.

The dish she created was tacos al carbon, which the whole world would eventually come to know as fajitas, the bedrock of Tex-Mex cuisine.