Viva la Tamale Lady! – Clarion Alley, Mission District, San Francisco, California

Virginia Ramos is better known to the people of San Francisco as the beloved Tamale Lady. In early 90s Virginia realized that her day job as a domestic worker cleaning houses was not earning enough money to send her 7 children to college. Virginia learned to make Tamales from her Grandmother when she was growing up in Mexico – so to make extra money she began cooking tamales in her kitchen after her house cleaning work was done. During the evening she would fill an insulated cooler with her delicious tamales and travel from bar to bar selling a hot home cooked meals to hungry folks all over San Francisco. Virginia is often referred to as an angel, a saint, or our Lady of the Tamales not just because she seems to miraculously appear when nightlife patrons need something to eat the most – but because she is known for her hugs, a shoulder to cry on, and her role as a surrogate grandmother to the people of the Mission – in fact she often wears a t-shirt that says "I don’t know you but I love you." In early 2013 some of the bars Virginia works out of were told they could not allow her to sell tamales because she wasn’t permitted. Virginia, who turned 60 in 2013, stopped selling tamales to the community she loves.

After meeting with Supervisor Campos and other City departments and with pro bono help from Barbary Coast Consulting, Virginia decided that it was time to take her business to the next level! The Tamale Lady announced that she would raise the money to open up a brick and mortar "Tamale Lady" restaurant in The Mission. To support Virginia’s campaign Megan Wilson and Jeff Martinez painted the ¡Viva La Tamale Lady! mural with the link to her Indygogo campaign to help her raise the money to realize her vision. She met her goal by the end of 2013.