Nome’s a town of burgers, pizza, and Asian cuisine — but it’s about to get something new to chew on. About 3 miles up the Nome-Teller Road sits a man camp — usually a place that houses temporary workers, but this one is different. One of the units at the camp is home to a new, authentic taco shop.
It’s called “La Casita Taco Shop,” or the little house in Spanish. It’s a long-awaited passion project of Nome resident Lucy Valdez.
“I've been waiting for years for this, and it's finally coming true. So it's exciting,” Valdez said.
Valdez is originally from California and has catered all over Nome — sometimes for crowds of up to 500 people.
It’s a family affair, with her mother helping her prep and Valdez handling most of the cooking.
“And I just moved my brother too. So it's a family owned business, my partner, and then my son's girlfriend. So we are going to be operated by family,” Valdez said.
Valdez said her family will divide and conquer the responsibilities. She and her mother will be running the kitchen while her brother, who moved to Nome from Arizona, will be delivering orders.
“We'll have our own vehicle, our own system for deliveries. We don't want to depend on anybody else for it since it's so far away from people,” Valdez said. “We want to give them the opportunity to be able to get their food through us.”
Inside, the shop has transformed from a basic kitchen to a fully stocked restaurant. It's equipped with a grill and stocked with high quality ingredients.
Valdez gets her ingredients from Sysco Alaska, a wholesale food distributor. Almost everything is flown to Nome from Anchorage.
Valdez’s mother, Lulu Vaca, said La Casita has been a long time coming.
“She's been waiting for this moment. I mean, this opportunity for a long time. So I'm so happy and proud of her, so proud,” Vaca said.
The restaurant will feature tacos with various types of proteins, like carne asada, carnitas, chicken — and the Mexican classic, birria. Other options include breakfast and dinner burritos, quesadillas, which will all be accompanied by homemade salsas.
“Like, the prep we're going to be doing our salsa prep. We're going to be doing horchata, our burrito stuff. That big day is coming when I open,” Valdez said.
Initially, the restaurant will be take-out and delivery only, with a dine-in option coming soon.
Valdez hopes La Casita brings a little taste of her roots to the tundra of Nome.
