Talking tacos with David Molina of Calaveras Mexican Grill

Welcome to Tulsa Talks presented by Tulsa Regional Chamber. I’m your host Tim Landes and I’m addicted to Mexican food. 

I could eat Mexican food for every meal, every day and not once complain. There are so many different options and then different takes on the dishes. The more I learn about it the more I want to explore and try everything.  

So you can imagine how excited I was that we feature a Tulsa taco guide in our May issue. We break down nine different types of tacos and 18 places to get them, including Calaveras Mexican Grill, located in the Kendall Whittier District. It’s also a food truck, which has been the Molina family’s primary operation since 2020. 

My guest on this episode is David Molina. He’s continuing his family’s tradition to feed people delicious authentic Mexican food. His parents immigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, to California in 1993 and then relocated to Tulsa, and as you’ll hear they’ve been operating restaurants throughout Tulsa ever since.  

David is a first-generation American and a native Tulsan, who has grown up in a city that is a lot different than when his parents settled here 24 years ago. Today, you’ll most likely find him somewhere around Tulsa slinging tacos out their food truck window. 

They kicked off the month at the Jenks Food Truck Festival and had a line around the block shortly after they opened the window. In this conversation recorded April 27 on Zoom, we discuss how much fun it is to run a food truck and toward the end of the conversation he shares their upcoming schedule and the best way to book them for your event.  

Anytime I have the opportunity to discuss Mexican food with an expert, I have to ask the burning questions like is a burrito a taco and does Taco Bell count as Mexican food? He answers those questions and more. 

I had a great time getting to know David and learning more about his and his family’s role in the Tulsa food scene. 

Following my conversation with David, I’m sharing Sarah Frick’s cover of the classic Dwight Twilley song “I’m on Fire.” More on that later. 

 OK, let’s get this going. 

This is Tulsa Talks with David Molina.  

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Forty six years ago in April, Tulsa musician Dwight Twilley released his debut single “I’m on Fire,” which would go on to peak at No. 16 on the Billboard 100 in the summer of 1975. 

Fast forward to February 2020 when Golden Ones frontwoman Sarah Frick stood at the microphone ready to put her touch on the Twilley classic. Inside the late Leon Russell’s famed Paradise Studio, Frick sang about how you ain’t got no lover while surrounded by an all-star slate of current Tulsa musicians helping bring the song and Tulsa’s rich music history back to life as part of Horton Record’s “Back to Paradise: A Tulsa Tribute to Okie Music,” now available at HortonRecords.org. 

I love the original version, but Frick’s cover might replace it as my go-to version. There’s just something about her vocals that transforms the song into a bluesy, more soulful, more rock n roll version, and of course it helps to have Jesse Aycock and Paul Benjaman on the guitars. After enjoying this song make sure you check out the video directed by Justin France and 8X8 Productions. 

I really hope I get to hear her perform this live somewhere around Tulsa soon. Speaking of which, you can always find the latest Tulsa Music Listings at TulsaPeople.com. 

Here is Sarah Frick’s “I’m on Fire.”  

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This episode produced by Morgan Phillips and Tim Landes.