DIXON, CA (MPG) - With brightly-colored flags decorating the front of La Familia Tortilla Shop in the Safeway Shopping Plaza, owners Kevin and Maria-Fernanda Evans along with a couple of dozen new fans from the Dixon Chamber of Commerce celebrated their Grand Opening. For an entire year this couple has rented the space between Safeway and Solano Baking Company in their quest to bring Dixonites a true taste from Mexico: tortillas!

Maria was born and raised in Mexico and moved here in 2013, spending time trying to teach her husband what authentic Mexican food is really like. On one of their trips back to Mexico to visit her family, Kevin figured it out.

“The tortilla tastes completely different,” he told her. So, we did a lot of research and discovered how it has changed over the years [Americanized.] The “legit ones,” she said, “are made from ground corn imported from Mexico and are 100-percent Mexican processed with no genetic modifications and no preservatives,” she explained.

At the well-attended ribbon cutting, people got to taste her favorite tortillas made of blue corn in flavors of spicy, chipotle, and jalapeño although they offered traditional white and yellow corn tortillas as well. They were worth the wait, participants agreed.

After finally getting approval from the City last October, they finished with construction around May but in another inspection discovered there were more changes to make including small things like changing the lightbulbs.

“It’s so we are not wasting electricity and being environmentally friendly and we’re fine with that,” she said. “We understand and we want to be compliant and good for the environment so after the fire department and the health department came over, we finally passed.”

It’s been a long year but they kept so busy, the time seemed to go by too quickly.

“It still hasn’t really sunk in yet and it doesn’t feel real,” Maria said. “There’s so many things we still want to do, so I don’t feel like I’m finally done. I still feel I’m in the midst of opening.” Over that time, the couple has realized how much they’ve taken for granted about the foods of their culture.

“There’s a lot of education component to it. Who thought you needed to be like a scientist to make tortillas? Back in the day we just took for granted the way food was made"'and our ancestors were not scientists. They just learned from trial and error. We just wanted to bring back the natural way of making the tortilla. It’s clean, never been sprayed, from small farms and we’re trying to provide fair trade to the farmers. It’s become bigger than us!” she said, sounding excited and equated their discovery of the tortillas to the natural beer and bread craze.

“It’s so incredible that we had something so simple... The response from the community has been amazing. We’re very proud and very humble "' and trying to honor our ancestors. We’re really in a nice spot,” she said.

“I just came back to tell you that the tortillas are amazing,” one customer said.

The shop is not a restaurant and operates more like a bakery but they do sell tamales on Fridays and Saturdays. Visit them at 1285 Stratford Ave., Suite C, or phone (707) 401-6100. Hours are 10:30 AM to 6 PM Monday thru Thursday and Friday and Saturday 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM.