Green Ghost Love

Growing up in a single-parent home, Cesar Torres and Oswaldo Sanchez would often help their mother, Yolanda Coronado, in the kitchen to make sure that dinner was at the table on time. Today, they still has a love of food and fellowship, two elements at the forefront of their authentic Mexican restaurant, Green Ghost Tacos, which opened in September 2015.

“It all started with a good idea of just bringing some good tacos to Mississippi,” Torres says. “We wanted to put it together—me, my brother and my mom—and we’ve been using my mom’s recipes. Our goal is to bring the freshest tacos available, all made from scratch.”

While Green Ghost is fairly new, its owners have lived in the Jackson area since coming here from Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1994. Torres moved to Chicago after graduating from Murrah High School in 1999 and began working in the restaurant industry, becoming a director of operations for a franchise group and a district manager for several restaurants chains at different times. His positions had him managing eateries in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana. Despite having about 800 employees working for him in his previous roles, Torres says running Green Ghost isn’t all that different.

“The only thing is that at that point, you had different departments that would help you,” he says. “Now, I have to be the person that does the accounting, I have to do P&Ls (profit and loss statements), I have to run to tables, (and) I have do the dishes. So when you go from a big organization to running your own business, you have to start from zero.”

Although he and his brother have plenty of responsibilities with Green Ghost, Torres says his mother is truly the one running the show, providing recipes for everything from the tacos and empanadas to the dessert options, such as pastel tres leches and flan.

“She’s the boss,” he says with a smile. “I just get to help her put the food together and execute it. With this, I think we’re just her children. There are no positions.”

Torres says one of the difficulties facing the restaurant has been getting the word out. Long before Green Ghost opened on County Line, rejuvenating their space with reclaimed-wood paneling and cheerful lime-green walls, the location housed another restaurant that was much less concerned with the food’s quality than Torres is.

“Then, it was closed for a long time, so people weren’t used to coming here at all,” he says. “The businesses next to us, you know, they’ve got their customers, but they’re also new businesses, so we’re all trying to build customer flow over here.”

Torres says they plan to open another location sometime this year, potentially closer to the Fondren or downtown areas.

Within the next few years, he says, you’ll hopefully be able to grab a slow-roasted pork shoulder torta or a marinated-steak taco from Green Ghost restaurants elsewhere in Mississippi and beyond. In the meantime, Torres and his family are just excited to see their idea become a reality and to see customers enjoying the food they create.

“If you’re in the food industry, one, you have to love food, and two, you have to love people,” Torres says. “… In the past, in my previous lives, I had jobs where I had to quit because the human interaction wasn’t there. It was more behind a desk, looking at spreadsheets all day, so I didn’t really like that. I really enjoy when people come in and tell you about their day, and working with employees, and just watching people eat the food and enjoy it.”

Green Ghost Tacos (1290 E. County Line Road, Ridgeland, 601-957-7436) is open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Visit greenghosttacos.com.