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on any given day we're making over a
thousand tortillas per minute when we
have those large orders like for Canada
or for other places in the country
that's what we really cranked up all the
machines and everybody in productions on
point we're talking about tons of
tortillas per day in our community
people go where they know there's
success or the next guy oh he put a
tortilla factory he's doing great so
instead of opening one in Queens it was
like oh we'll just put it two blocks
down like you know this was just it this
is where everyone decided to put their
tortilla factors and there was just so
many that it became the tortilla
triangle at the height through probably
about seven tortilla factories and 2019
there are only two us and los hermanos
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my name is Nelson Carrera I'm Miguel
career we're here at me Barrios of the
area one of the oldest of the 80s in New
York City in general probably the first
in Brooklyn
we're from a small town in puebla called
the axilla
that's the namesake of the tortilla my
dad came to this country and actually
worked at this precise company as a
driver fast forward some years he took a
leap of faith and opened a cheese plant
and about ten years ago I came in with
my brother and we purchased the company
that he used to work for
every morning and every afternoon I'd
see the doors here and every day we'd
see less and less people come in and we
gradually just saw what used to be an
empire pretty much just defined and you
know there was just one day where there
was an opportunity to buy out the
company and you know on Friday I was
making cheese and I'm one day I was
making tortillas
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it started off as a tortilla factory and
at this point now we're pretty much a
full-fledged food service company we
import we export out of the country we
do everything from produce to canvas dry
goods you tell me what you need and my
job is to get it whether I lose a dollar
or I make a few bucks here and there if
you're a regular customer and you need
something that's not in the States
that's legal you got it
we're big enough for we're importing and
exporting tons of products every day but
we're small enough where you know you
could call us on our cell phone and say
hey I ran out of avocado and you helped
me out and we'll be there
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so it's uh yeah definitely 7 a.m.
unloading we're literally just doing
fillings right now truck out here a
little bit late so this is pretty much
where the show starts happening most of
these guys have been working together
for 10 years some dudes have been here
for over 20 years that's the only way
something like this works its really a
trust bond friendship you learn to read
each other without even talking all
right man sir we're going we're going
into a fix you know a lot of the
fillings so you got a lot of stuff
that's uh that's missing some stuff that
needs to be filled in or chopped in
that's scary this is pretty much the
warehouse where we do a lot of the
prepping you'll have a lot of the
beverages here you have how to eat those
you'll have Mexican Co you have Maseca
all pretty much dry goods I'm Melana
here it's it's pretty much just what we
use in one day we're gonna sneak through
this yeah let's get uh
Spanish onions you have avocado some of
this stuff is green some of this stuff
that's ready to go the majority of the
definitely the soul of the company
there's a reason why we haven't changed
our name to me barrio distribution or
weenie barrio Mexican food it's still my
barrio through the area Rene was the
Masetto he's been doing dough for turf
area since he was about 17 years old
he's actually been in every 30 area that
has been in Brooklyn and he's at one of
the last remaining ones above
so the perfect route iya is completely
dependent on the end-user or in this
case the chef you have chef that because
the taco has a lot of sauce or a lot of
liquid history is going to be a lot
tougher and drier because he's taken
into account that there's moisture going
into that taco you have chefs that don't
care about holding because they're not
putting any sauce on their taco so they
feel like let it be soft puffy pillowy
that's what we need so really we've
learned that there is no perfect
tortilla there's good tortillas of
course but it's all dependent on the
chef's seasons would go by and I would
see this do like sweating in the back
sweating bullets on top of the machine
guys who are on the machine like they
would step away because like he was
throwing everything out like the batch
was bad like it was going to the garbage
you know as much as I didn't want to
jump on the tortilla line when it was
six o'clock and then like everybody was
leaving and just do was still in
productions like yo I gotta get my hands
there you know wash my hands and so I
pick it up there to use so the way it
starts you get your flour in this case
it's Maseca and Mincy and you do a mix
we put a bunch of water at a certain
temperature we put the flour in there
and we mix it for a specific amount of
time and that's very important mixed
time is crucial for the quality and then
from there you take out the dough the
way we do it is we set it on the table
we let it air out like bread and then
from there it goes into another machine
which is a hopper sort of it's called a
gooseneck that turns it into a sheet of
dough which then goes into two rollers
and under it is a die cut so pretty much
it gets cut into the shape of the
tortilla and from there it goes into the
oven it's a three-stage oven first stage
seals it second stage cooks it third
stage pops it up
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all right so after you you get the 30th
through the oven it reaches this which
is just a cooling conveyor and all
that's happening here is that the fuse
actually coming out it's ready to eat
you can literally eat this off the
conveyor all it's doing you're just
buying time it's cooling the tortilla
enough so that by the time it gets to
the hackers in the in the front it's
cold enough so it's not burning anyone's
hands and it's also not melting the poly
bag that it's being packed into this is
the last point of the production before
it goes into the box so these are the
ladies that if there's anything wrong
we'll go back there and tell the the
Macedo it looks you know the dough that
serviette seems a little too hard it
seems a little too soft it seemed a
little too brittle so this is literally
you have for people that are packing but
they're also inspecting your product so
just like you know you have a team of
strong guys you know helping us out with
loading the trucks and prepping the
orders you have a very very strong team
of women here that make sure that our
main product the most important product
is its perfection pretty much
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most of the people that are heavy into
manufacturing have moved to Jersey some
to the Bronx and it's all just positive
operation
you know it's rent it's everything I
mean it's just very very hard to operate
out of a borough like Brooklyn and more
specifically you know a community like
push free I want to give it a bad name
people that knew Bushwick knew what it
was crime was at an all-time high when
we were coming here back in 95 96 but
still like the people that weren't into
that like still people that live right
across the street that you know saw us
grow up over here the biggest reason
that we stayed was because of our crew
our people ultimately we decided to bet
on our community
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all right so so we're off flushing cross
street is Bushwick on one corner you
have the gasoline station on the other
corner you have the Bushwick houses so
back in the day man this was a you know
not even a talking extra definitely
definitely one of the toughest
neighborhoods in Brooklyn murder rate
primary definitely one of the highest in
the city South Bronx Bushwick
even now man people don't know that but
literally where we're standing now it's
still one of the highest crime rates in
the city all right so we're making a
left on Myrtle but I got all the houki
knives have yet spot one of the last
holdouts in Bushwick really good food
really good environment and no pros if
you walk by it's very easy to miss but
it's it's very dope spot you know good
food they're open almost 24 hours a day
seven days a week
very different depending on time of day
you come in but if you come on a weekend
Friday Saturday night
it's a action-packed club in here the
Mexican community in Bushwick it's very
big
that's a strong community like in all of
New York everybody's from Puebla but
then from there you have a lot of people
that are from BX Allah from shinola last
one I meet sticker is what they thought
it's big man I mean you see at least one
Mexican business on every street and it
just talks about you know the the amount
of Mexicans they are
so we're going back to Flushing Avenue
and you know a few years back this whole
area it was called the tortilla triangle
because there were so many through TI
factories in such a small space and
there's only two of us left and that's
just how butchery has been you know it's
a lot of changes you know a lot of a lot
of the old stuffs gone there's a lot of
new stuff and you know instead of going
out me and my brother decided to bet on
Brooklyn and stay here
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before there was fresh direct there was
my dad going on in his van to these like
apartments and houses he would go in and
say hey I got tortillas I got bread I
got cheese I got this and you know he
would take us along we would be the
copilot's but we definitely bump huts
every day I mean it's not without a
question as soon as we leave like I got
the eyebrow see later all yeah yeah oh
are you gonna go if we're gonna go to
this restaurant
oh yeah I'll pass you guys over there
we're gonna go to the warehouse grab a
few drinks you know that it dies once we
leave this warehouse
the biggest perk to running and
operating a business like this is you
get to grow together you know it's a
it's probably the best thing you take
out us in 2019 you know some people
think that you can't do things like this
you really can
like it's possible you sacrifice a lot
but ultimately like you look around and
you know you can say like look this is
real like you know this is where our
work with
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you