The Veracruz All Natural Sisters Bet Everything on Their Mother’s Recipes—and Austin Fell in Love

Ask anyone to name the flavors that define Austin and, sooner or later, Veracruz All Natural enters the conversation. In less than two decades, sisters Reyna and Maritza Vazquez have become fixtures of the community’s food identity, growing a single trailer into a collection of trucks, restaurants and ventures. Their growing footprint includes Veracruz Fonda & Bar, recipient of a Michelin Bib Gourmand, La Mezca, a partnership at Leona and the 2026 cookbook “Veracruz All Natural: Fresh Mexican Recipes from Our American Home,” published by Simon & Schuster.

Their influence, though, reaches beyond the restaurants themselves. It is also found in the example they have set for other women, families and newcomers who arrive in Austin hoping to build something of their own. The sisters came from Veracruz, Mexico, worked relentlessly and created a food business that would become a signature part of Austin’s food scene.

“If you really want it,” Reyna says of starting your own business from scratch, “I think it’s possible. Everything is possible. Sometimes we create our own limitations.”

Where Veracruz All Natural began

In 2006, Reyna bought a tiny trailer and began selling snow cones, fruit cups and smoothies. It was not yet the taco business Austin would come to know. In 2008, Maritza joined as a partner, and the sisters turned to the food they had grown up on — selling tacos built from their mother’s recipes.

The sisters kept other jobs and worked in shifts, one sleeping on the trailer floor while the other served customers. The early years tested their resolve, but neither sister had to carry the uncertainty alone. As they learned a new language and culture while navigating the challenges of starting a business, they relied on each other through the long days and nights.

“When I wanted to give up, Reyna was there for me. She was reminding me why we were doing this,” Maritza says.

They were doing it for their family, especially their mother, who was cleaning houses while managing asthma. “We really wanted our mom to quit,” Reyna says.

Then, someone broke into the trailer and destroyed everything inside, leaving the sisters without enough money to restock. For a moment, they thought they might have to abandon their dream. But their mother refused to let them. She stepped in to help them restock, and told them what she had spent a lifetime showing them. “She told us, ‘No. You’re not going to give up,’” recalled Maritza. 

A taste of home

The turning point came with a thatched palapa the sisters built over the truck overnight. Drivers slowed to look, and soon lines started to form. They started with the food they knew best, including the migas they had grown up eating in Veracruz.

“We wanted to create a migas taco that tasted like home,” Reyna says.

The “all natural” in the name derived from the sister’s exposure to diabetes and high blood pressure in their family, which taught them how cooking with fresh ingredients was vital. “We wanted to offer the taste of Mexico, but in a different way,” Reyna says. “A healthier way.”

That connection to home continues through their mother’s mole, a recipe that filled their childhood weekend mornings with its aroma. It now appears in their cookbook exactly as she made it. “If we’re going to give the recipe,” the sisters decided, “it has to be the original recipe.”

Austin’s support came gradually, first through word of mouth and then through local press. Customers brought friends, writers took notice and the sisters began to see that the city was making room for what they were building.

Crafting an Austin staple

The same instinct guides their growth. They pursue opportunities that feel right, collaborate with people they trust and leave room for their team to grow. Roughly 80% of their managers are women, and the sisters now mentor other small-business owners who are beginning where they once did.

Through it all, they remain sisters and best friends first, business partners second. “We put the love first, and then the business,” Reyna says. “We never gave up.”

Roughly two decades after that first trailer, the sisters have built eight restaurants, created jobs, earned Michelin recognition and shared the food of their childhood with a city that welcomed them from the beginning. Ask what Austin means to them, and the answer is simple.

“This is our home.”