Cheese Enchiladas
Corn tortillas filled with cheese, rolled, and finished with red chile sauce. The tortillas are the family's own from the Tortilla Factory line, which is why they hold the chile better than the store-bought version.
Dine In or Take Out — 6205 19th St, Lubbock
The Full Menu — Because We Feed More Than Just Tamale Cravings
About the Restaurant
A Tamale Factory That Happens to Have Tables
Tony's dream wasn't only tamales by the dozen. It was a place where you could sit down with a plate. So along with the tamale operation, the kitchen on 19th Street runs a small full menu: enchiladas, fajitas, grilled catfish, and the kind of plates that show up at family Sunday dinners across West Texas. Tamales are still the brand. The restaurant is the second half of what Tony wanted, made real. Walk in for lunch and you'll see both halves working in the same kitchen at the same time.
At 11:30 on a Tuesday, lunch is mostly regulars: the dental office across the way, the construction crew working on a job nearby, three generations of one family who've been coming here as long as anyone can remember. The smell at 11 AM is masa and chiles, the kind of smell every Leal kitchen in West Texas has. The full Leal family is at lealsmexicanfoods.com if you want to know how it all connects.
Hours are Monday through Friday, 11 AM to 9 PM. Walk in any time the doors are open, call ahead at (806) 780-LEAL if you want it ready, or order through DoorDash for delivery. First time in? Order anything that's listed and ask the counter what's running well today. Saturdays and Sundays we're closed.
The Menu
Mon–Fri, 11 AM to 9 PM. Call (806) 780-LEAL for today's specials, sides, or to place an order ahead.
You Won't See This Everywhere
Grilled Catfish — Yes, at a Tamale Factory
The grilled catfish is the menu item that makes regulars confused on the first visit. A tamale factory shouldn't have catfish, the thinking goes. But Tony wanted a real restaurant, not a single-note theme place, somewhere a Tuesday lunch crowd could order whatever they were in the mood for. Catfish was always part of that vision. We grill it the way the recipe asks for. People keep ordering it. So it stays.
Call to Ask About Today's MenuWhat Lubbock Orders First
The Plates Regulars Reach For
Six dishes that come out of this kitchen more than the rest. The full menu is below — call (806) 780-LEAL for today's sides and specials.
Chicken Fajitas
Marinated white-meat chicken with peppers and onions, served on a hot iron plate with rice, beans, and warm flour tortillas. The kind of plate where you build your own taco at the table.
Grilled Catfish
The unexpected one. Cornmeal-dusted catfish grilled with lemon, served with rice and beans. Tony added it to the menu when the restaurant first opened, and the regulars kept ordering it. That's how it stays.
Tamale Plate
Three tamales of your choice — pork, chicken, bean, or green chile and cheese — with rice and beans on the side. The shortest path to the brand on the menu.
Beef Enchiladas
Shredded beef in red chile, rolled in our corn tortillas, topped with cheese. Heavier than the cheese version, and a favorite for Friday lunch.
Leal's Special
One enchilada, one taco, one tamale, rice, and beans — the combo plate when you can't decide. Most of the lunch crowd orders this.
A Lubbock Mexican Restaurant on 19th Street
What a Visit Looks Like
The Room
Small, bright, scuffed in the right places. A counter where you order, a few tables where you eat, and a window where pickup orders come out. The kitchen is visible from most seats — you can see the masa working before lunch starts. Walls are warm earth tones, signage is hand-painted in places, and nothing about the room is trying to be more than what it is.
The Food
Tamales are the brand. The restaurant menu is everything else Tony wanted to serve from the same kitchen — enchiladas with red chile, fajitas that come out sizzling, grilled catfish that surprises first-time visitors, and the corn and flour tortillas the family has been making since the 1957 Tortilla Factory days. Plates come with chips and hot sauce. Portions are honest.
The Crowd
Lunch rush starts around 11:30 and runs to 1:30, with a steady stream of regulars from the businesses up and down 19th Street. Dinner is quieter, more families, more take-out. We close at 9 PM Monday through Friday, and we're closed on weekends so the kitchen can rest and the family can be home.
Address: 6205 19th St, Lubbock, TX 79407. Phone: (806) 780-LEAL. Closest cross streets: between Quaker Avenue and Slide Road on 19th. Plenty of parking in the lot. Walk in any time the doors are open.