To passersby, the colorful taco truck stationed next to Toby’s seemed to pop up out of nowhere when it made its Point Reyes Station debut last week. It was a welcome surprise in a town with limited dining options, but the fledgling business had been percolating in the mind of Omar Oria for more than a decade.
“I’ve been thinking about this for years,” Mr. Oria said. “It’s a dream come true.”
Mr. Oria, who has been working in West Marin since 2006, has a wide network of friends cultivated during his years as a busboy and waiter at the former Osteria Stellina and as manager of Toby’s Coffee Bar, a job he continues to hold. He’s hoping to count those friends among his hungry customers.
He and his wife, Gricelda Correa, live over the hill in Santa Rosa, but they knew they wanted to park their new business—the Pt. Reyes Mexican Grill—in the town they’ve long worked in.
“It’s beautiful here,” Ms. Correa said. “What keeps Omar coming back is the warm feeling of community. People here have become family to him.”
While the business gets on its feet, the truck will be open seven days a week, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Within several months, the couple hopes to extend its hours until 7 p.m.
The menu is simple, with three kinds of meats, three kinds of sauces and three options for putting them together: tacos, burritos and quesadillas.
“People can be very indecisive,” said Ms. Correa, who is handling publicity and social media for the truck. “If you give them too many options and they can’t make up their minds, they’ll go get a sandwich because that’s easier.”
The meat options are carne asada, carnitas and pollo asado.
The couple, who had their first date at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, have been together since 2011. The relationship almost went off the rails early on when they went on a hike in Bear Valley. The sun went down and “Omar nearly lost me in the woods,” Ms. Correa said, laughing.
Fourteen years later, they have two daughters: Sofia, 7, and Elena, who will soon turn 1.
When she’s not helping with the truck, Ms. Correa has a full-time job as the program manager of a national nonprofit based in Petaluma called On the Margins, which does community organizing work.
Mr. Oria believes successful entrepreneurs need knowledgeable mentors, and he has had some good ones. Top among them is Christian Caiazzo, who owned Stellina, a beloved Italian eatery that closed during the pandemic. Mr. Caiazzo also owns the coffee bar and Stellina Pronto, a Petaluma bakery, café and pizza shop.
Mr. Oria originally planned to open a coffee bar of his own in Petaluma, but his plans were upended by the pandemic. With restaurants forced to close their indoor seating, he started formulating plans for bringing food to the people. Thus the food truck idea was born. When he pitched the concept to Chris Giacomini, who owns Toby’s Feed Barn, and to Chris’s daughter, Melissa, they were all in.
“We immediately said yes,” Ms. Giacomini said. “There wasn’t a doubt in our mind that it would be successful. We’ve seen Omar in action at the coffee bar, and he’s a wonderful manager, very personable, and a very hard worker. We had no doubt in our mind that we wanted to support him in whatever venture he was going into on his own.”
Mr. Oria soon reached out to another mentor, a friend named Rafael who has a network of Bay Area food trucks and rented one to Mr. Oria. He consulted closely with the county to obtain the permits needed for such an enterprise.
Mr. Oria and Ms. Correa came up with the design for the truck, which is adorned with the colors of the sunset and features the lighthouse in its logo. There are depictions of green hills, blue waters, and Mesoamerican textiles that recall the couple’s roots.
In addition to Point Reyes Station, the names of other West Marin villages are written on the rear of the truck, because Mr. Oria imagines he might later incorporate them into menu items, such as a Bolinas Burrito or a Tomales Taco.
Everything is made from scratch, including the blue corn tortillas and the salsas—una que pica, una que no pica, and una que pica mas o menos—which roughly translates to one that stings, one that doesn’t sting, and one that stings a little bit.
The ingredients, including the meats, will be fresh and local. The close-knit crew arrives at 7 a.m. and does the food prep right inside the truck. Marcos de la Cruz, a former chef at Stellina, mans the grill and the gas burners. Elena, a coffee bar colleague, works the register, and a close family friend named Josh works as the sous chef.
Mr. Oria plans to expand the team along with the business.
Growing up, he learned from his mother, who ran a business making tortillas out of her kitchen. In their hometown in Hidalgo, Mexico, she was the go-to source for anyone who needed them.
Today, they get support from their California family. Ms. Correa’s mother, who comes from Michoacán, has a passion for Mexican cooking, and Mr. Oria’s sister, who lives in Petaluma, knows all about salsas and aguas frescas, another item on the menu.
Among the customers who showed up on Tuesday was Jorge Lopez, a construction worker whose Mesa Road apartment is within sight of Toby’s.
“It’s nice to have a Latino-owned place nearby where we can get food,” Mr. Lopez said. “We can walk right over. We don’t have to go anyplace else.”
Also lining up for tacos was park ranger and sea chantey enthusiast Fiona O’Kelly. “This is brilliant,” she said. “This is exactly what we need. A burrito for $12. Where do you see that anymore?”