DALLAS — Luis Perez has been in broadcasting for more than twenty years. After landing a job for Telemundo in Dallas a sideline opportunity arose with the Dallas Cowboys.
“Eighteen years later here I am and I’m in the broadcast booth,” Perez said. “It’s a dream come true.”
Perez’s family feels the job with the Cowboys is just as much of a blessing for them as it for himself.
“I was born into a Cowboys household,” Luis said. “My father has been a fan since 1960 for the Dallas Cowboys so he was ecstatic when I told him that I was going to be working for the Cowboys.”
Perez has a passion for sports and the broadcast industry, but felt the industry was fickle and fleeing. He decided to charter an idea he’s had for 10 years: a tortilla factory.
“The reason why I opened the tortilla factory is because of the flour tortillas,” Luis said. "I could never find any good quality flour tortillas in Dallas— at least not the ones that I liked. That’s where I think I saw the void in the market. Where hey this is a quality product that I like that’s not available in Dallas that I think other people would like. So I decided to start some research into how to open up a tortilla factory.”
Perez is from a border town called Cananea Sonora. He grew up eating Sonoran style tortillas.
"Essentially I took the recipe and I scaled it up to come up with a way to do bigger batches,” Perez explained. "We had to do some tweaks. We had to incorporate some other ingredients to make it work at a high volume setting. It’s essentially what I grew up eating when I was at my house. And my mom would make tortillas and before she would be done making them they would all be gone. So essentially that’s what I incorporated into my business.”
In 2014, Perez’s tortillas factory, La Norteña, was born. It’s been successful, and the factory distributes corn, wheat, and flour tortillas to over 20 restaurants here in Dallas.
“If we can make a better taco with our tortillas, then let's go on and make a better burrito,” Perez said. "If we can make a burrito, then we can probably make better stuff. So little by little we want to improve our product to compliment the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”
Perez is proud that he still gets to support the Cowboys while living out his dream.
“The chance to remain with the team, it just tells you about the commitment that the Cowboys have the importance that the Spanish speaking fans have within the Cowboys,” he said.
He hopes to grow the foundation of his business and serve many more tortillas for years to come.