Photography by Victoria Gomez.
Lena Sanchez-Palomo knew her coworkers needed help as soon as she saw the jar of Pace salsa come out at a company lunch.
“I was like, ‘Oh, you guys eat that? Um, my mom makes really good salsa. I’ll bring some in,’” she says.
Sanchez-Palomo, who was working for a wealth management firm at the time, brought in two varieties: her mom’s Rustic Ranchero salsa, which is similar to the chunky Pace version, and her family’s favorite, a creamy green concoction.
The CEO of the firm decided to put Sanchez-Palomo’s mom, Carol “Cita” Castillo, on the payroll, so there would always be a batch of fresh salsa for the office.
Coworkers started requesting salsa as gifts for friends and family, but Sanchez-Palomo just thought they were being kind.
Still, she and her mom began entering contests, starting with the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival in 2009. At a North Haven Gardens contest, Cita won a sun hat she still loves. They participated in Fort Worth’s ZestFest from 2012-2020, winning a few first-place Golden Chile awards along the way.
But salsa-making was really just a hobby until Cita lost her job as an overnight manager for a gas station in 2010. By the next year, the family started taking steps to turn the hobby into a business by renting commercial kitchen space in Garland and getting licenses to manufacture food.
Farmers markets in Richardson and McKinney, and the White Rock Local Market at The Green Spot, were the first places Cita’s Salsa was sold.
“It just slowly gained a following out there, and so that was fun to see it grow, with every little step,” Sanchez-Palomo says.
In 2013, a farmers market customer brought home Cita’s Salsa to the customer’s partner, who worked for Central Market. Within the year, Cita’s Salsa was on the grocer’s shelves.
Preparing so much product was a big step, but the Cita’s Salsa team made it happen, even while Sanchez-Palomo was still working full time at the wealth management firm. On Monday and Tuesday nights after work, she and some helpers would make all of the salsa — about 50 cases, or 600-700 bottles.
The salsa-making process became a little better in 2017, when Cita’s began using high-pressure processing. The system helps keep flavors fresher than pasteurization, Sanchez-Palomo says, while extending the salsa’s shelf life and ensuring a safe food product.
In 2018, they started construction on their kitchen and retail store in Casa View, a space close to Sanchez-Palomo’s house in Buckner Terrace and Cita’s in Mount Auburn.
The idea for the place, which opened in June 2019, was to have somewhere to make and sell salsa and grab-and-go meals. They prepare a few of the family’s favorite dishes, such as Cita’s tetrazzini and beef enchilada casserole, and Sanchez-Palomo’s turkey meatloaf, ready for neighbors to heat up — a homemade alternative to fast food.
“Convenience is what we wanted,” says Sanchez-Palomo, who left the wealth management firm in 2019.
Now, with goods to sell at Central Market stores throughout Texas, three local farmers markets and the Casa View store, Sanchez-Palomo, Cita and their team produce twice as much salsa as they did a decade ago.
How long has your mom been making salsa?
As long as I can remember. My grandparents — I remember spending the summers at the farm, and my grandfather always had a little pepper farm out there. Salsa’s just always something you have with every meal. So my grandmother would just toss some ingredients together and make a warm salsa. So my mom, naturally, had the same thing. I think she developed more flavors along the way just because she’s such a foodie.
Who’s involved with the business now?
We have a couple of part-time employees on a regular basis. We have seasonal employees. It’s definitely family-run. So my husband is a lot of the distribution. He’ll go deliver the salsa, pick up the salsa for us. My oldest son does farmers markets now. Came home for the summer from college at Texas State, so he’s here making that summer money, which is nice because I have help. Rocco, my 14-year-old, he helps all the time, too. So I try and give him a little normal life, but he takes pride in his Saturday work here.
Is your mom still helping?
Oh, yeah. Cita’s in the kitchen. We definitely couldn’t do it without her. Earlier in the week, she gets here at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning and starts cooking. It’s kind of her time. I think a lot of creative or talented people, especially cooks, they need their time to do some stuff on their own.
What are the top-sellers?
Red Rage. The Garden Green, the mild tomatillo, definitely. The super-spicy fans love the roasted habanero salsa. And we have hotter versions now of our two most popular. So now we have a hot Garden Green made with serrano instead of jalapeño. We have a hotter version of the Red Rage. And that one just came about because a lot of people at the farmers markets, especially dads, were like, “Man that Red Rage is good, but everybody eats it all up, so I just need something a little spicier, and it’d be my own.” So we made the Fiery Fiesta, and that caught on, too.
Cita’s Kitchen, 2234 Gus Thomasson Road
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
