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SAN JOSE — The Ayalas hadn’t fully given up hope, but the call still came as a shock.
Longtime San Jose residents Juana Quiroz Ayala and Francisco Ayala were left devastated last month after their food truck, Adelita’s, was stolen from a gas station parking lot near Berryessa — leaving them without their main source of income amid the pandemic.
For four weeks, they waited in vain, thinking they might never see the truck again. But as they got ready for breakfast Monday morning, San Jose police called: The trailer had been found in a small outpost off Interstate 5 in Merced County.
Police hitched the trailer to one of their vehicles to drive it home — and within hours, Adelita’s was back in San Jose.
“We feel good, really good,” Ayala said in Spanish Wednesday. “Adelita isn’t the same, but … it gave us a bit of peace.”
The food truck had been missing for about a month since thieves took off with it the night of Sept. 13. As the truck rested in its usual spot in a gas station parking lot at Berryessa and Capitol, two men hopped out of the white van; while one served as lookout, the other rigged Adelita’s truck to drive away with it, according to security camera footage from the incident.
For the past five years, the duo ran Adelita’s together, selling fresh quesadillas, tostadas and burritos around the South Bay. It was a big step up for the family; before that, the Ayalas had cleaned homes for a living. And while the pandemic did away with some of their income, customers had recently started coming back.
The loss left them struggling to make ends meet — let alone build up their kids’ college funds. They set up a GoFundMe to recoup some of the $70,000 they spent on the truck, and were blown away by the $55,000 they’ve received in support since then.
At least $18,000 or so of that will go toward fixing the truck, Ayala said. Whoever stole it repainted it and removed parts of the inside, taking out the lights and parts of the fuel system. There was also damage to the outside of the trailer, according to San Jose police Sgt. Christian Camarillo.
No arrests were made, and SJPD said it continues to search for the suspects.
Within the next three weeks or so, the couple plans to reopen business with a truck a supporter in Texas has promised them after reading this news organization’s coverage of their story. But it will take at least another six or seven months to rehabilitate the Adelita’s trailer back to its original state.
“I feel stronger now. What we went through, it made me feel like I can’t give up,” Quiroz Ayala said. “The dream that my husband and I had — the community treated it was theirs, too.”
