Photo by Jon Anderson
Felix Vicente makes beef quesabirrias at Taqueria Los Primos in the Lorna Town Square shopping center in Hoover, Alabama, on Friday, March 21, 2025.
Taqueria Los Primos has been in the Lorna Town Square shopping center off Lorna Road for about 10 years, but current owner Felix Vicente has only had it about four.
And for him, it has been a learning curve, he said. The restaurant serves authentic Mexican food, but Vicente is not Mexican. He’s from Guatamela, so he has learned a lot since taking over the franchise after the previous owner left, he said.
Vicente does have a good bit of restaurant experience. He’s been in the industry since he was 16 or 17, he said. He got his start busing tables at the Chili’s in Wildwood. Then he got into serving and cooking.
After he worked at Chili’s five or six years, he moved on to Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Que in Hoover for about seven years and then spent nine years with Steak ‘n Shake. He worked his way up to manager at the Steak ‘n Shake in Hoover, then worked as manager at the Inverness location until it closed and the Alabaster location until it closed, he said. He came back to the Hoover Steak ‘n Shake as an assistant manager until the opportunity at Taqueria Los Primos opened up.
At first, Vicente thought Mexican food would be a lot like Tex-Mex, but it’s really different, he said. A lot of Tex-Mex places use ground beef, but at Taquerio Los Primos they use birria, which is a shredded beef that takes 12 to 15 hours to cook, he said.
About 60 to 70% of his customers are Hispanic, but he would like to grow his non-Hispanic customer base, he said.
The bestselling dishes there are beef tripe, pozole (a Mexican spicy soup), beef quesabirria, fish mojarra, steak and chicken tenders, and sopes (a fried corn tortilla with beans, meat, lettuce, tomatoes, Mexican cheese and sour cream).
Photo by Jon Anderson
The beef quesabirrias are some of the bestselling items on the menu at Taqueria Los Primos in the Lorna Town Square shopping center in Hoover, Alabama.
Vicente’s wife, Karla Hernandez, works with him there, and he works most every day, he said. The busiest times are Sunday afternoons after church, he said.
Taqueria Los Primos is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call 205-396-6662.
