Spanish-speaking customers at Tortillas Blanco occasionally point out the grammar error in the business name.

In Spanish, the plural, feminine adjective “blancas” would be correct with the plural, feminine noun “tortillas.” Business owners Mark and April White knew this when choosing a name for their shop. Drawing on his visits to Mexico and south Texas as a teen, Mark dubbed the place “Tortillas Blanco.”

“Down there they called me ‘Marco Blanco,’ because my name is Mark White,” he said.

So the name of the business came from putting together the product, tortillas, with the name, White.

Customers usually find this explanation humorous, Mark said. Likewise, first-time customers tend to find humor in discovering non-Hispanic proprietors at the establishment.

“Sometimes Hispanic customers come to the take-out window and laugh because we’re white,” Mark said. “Then they’ll ask why we have a Hispanic sign.”

The Whites opened up shop at 1000 Frazier Street in Athens in October, after traveling to Bend, Ore., to learn the ins and outs of mass tortilla production.

“When I was a little boy, my granddaddy took mission trips to Mexico a lot and I would go with him,” Mark said. “The quality of the authentic food there was so much better. The families would go to these tortillerias and bring home fresh, hot tortillas and they were great.”

With the local Hispanic population booming in recent years, Mark saw an untapped market.

“It occurred to me that there are a lot of Hispanics here but no tortillerias,” he said. “So I started to investigate what it would take.”

Perusing Internet sites, Mark found a small, successful tortilla shop in Oregon. He called the proprietor, Mario Huerta, to ask for business advice. Soon, Mark and April were on a flight to Oregon, where they would spend eight days working alongside Huerta, learning the ropes of tortilla production.

Upon their return to Athens, the Whites spent four months tending to the details of launching a new business. They found, purchased and expanded a small building on Frazier Street, bought business licenses and took delivery of equipment purchased from a small shop in Utah that went out of business while they were visiting Oregon.

Since early October, Mark, 26, and April, 21, have arrived at Tortillas Blanco at 7:30 each morning to fire up the oven, mix the dough, and cook and package both corn and flour tortillas, a process that takes about two hours.

Not only do they own the business but they also serve as the only employees.

From 9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, the Whites sell the fresh, hot tortillas at $2 per 2 pounds of corn tortillas and $2 per dozen of flour. They also recently began offering tacos and burritos after quite a few lunchtime customers requested the items.

Initially, their clientele was about 95 percent Hispanic, Mark said. As word spreads about Tortillas Blanco, he said, the balance has shifted to about 70 percent Hispanic and 30 percent non.

“I think the Hispanics who come here are really excited about it,” Mark said. “Some of the women have been making tortillas at home and they make them for a lot of people. They say they are happy we’re here, that it saves them the time and the trouble of making fresh tortillas at home.”

Hispanic customers tend to buy corn tortillas, while non-Hispanics tend to prefer the flour version.

“That’s probably because we like biscuits so much here in the South,” Mark said.

Nationwide, the tortilla is making leaps and bounds in consumer popularity. According to Tortilla Industry Association research, tortillas accounted for 32 percent of sales reported by the U.S. Bread Industry in 2002, earning the second-place spot behind white bread as the nation’s most popular bread product. A similar study in 2004 showed tortilla sales for that year reaching $6.1 billion in the U.S. A TIA news release following the 2004 study notes “small firms with annual revenue of less than $10 million are a significant presence in the industry.”

The TIA Web site cites the nutritional aspects of the tortilla — perhaps in part explaining why tortillas have gained such popularity among the ever-dieting American population.

According to TIA, flour tortillas are low-fat, contain iron and other essential B vitamins and carry 115 calories and 2-3 grams of fat per serving.

Corn tortillas are low-fat, low-sodium and contain calcium, potassium and fiber. An average serving has about 60 calories and 1 gram of fat.

Mark White, however, sees another reason for the surge in demand for tortillas.

“A lot of people don’t know what fresh tortillas taste like,” he said. “When they try them fresh, they find that it’s totally different” (than pre-packaged tortillas mass produced and sold in grocery stores).

“We don’t have to worry so much about preservatives,” he said. “We’ve got just enough in there so when you take our tortillas home you can put them on the shelf and they’ll keep for a week. In the fridge, they’ll keep for two weeks.”

The Whites, of course, hope to see their business grow in line with the nationwide trend. Currently Tortillas Blanco sales are retail focused.

Mark White said he’d like to maintain that stance while also offering wholesale access to area restaurants and specialty food shops.

Meanwhile, though, they are enjoying watching their customer base grow and getting to know those who have become regulars at Tortillas Blanco.

April, who took German in high school rather than Spanish, keeps a “cheat sheet” of common Spanish phrases taped up next to the take-out window. She’s learned “bien” (good, well) and “hola” (hello) as well as “dos diez y seis” or $2.16, the amount including tax (“impuesto”) for one bag of tortillas.