About Us
Jimenez y Friends is a new concept from an old business/restaurant family from here in Lubbock TX and after 18, almost 19 years away from the business we decided what the hell and give it another shot. We will be selling burritos, Mexican Plates, donuts, cinnamon rolls, a rotating selection of my family’s famous Mexican Pastries and of course tacos…but a different version than everyone is used to. The other unique thing will be that all our food will be To-Go/Takeout. With a pandemic and a shortage of food service workers, we figure might as well change with the times, accommodate everyone, and do our part to help.
We used to be known as Jimenez Burrito Express & Bakery and were located across the street from Jones Stadium, 6th & University. Breaking off from the Jimenez Family that had occupied Jimenez Bakery & Restaurant since 1977, we decided to open a burrito shop back in 1992 and were one of the originators of the fast food/burrito shops here in Lubbock.
The simple yet unique concept quickly grew in popularity. We were cheap and portable and seems like everyone wanted our product. Although we had our tiny little blue restaurant and were doing well, we did have other business reach out to get a piece of what we offered. So, (and let me preface this with this was a time when “delivery” was less governed and we were not aware of all the laws) we struck up deals with 11 gas stations here in town to sell our burritos and pastries, and even had a deal with a department with UMC to do the same. That little venture lasted a good while until I guess we pissed off a few people who were losing money due to our little venture.
After that we continued to deliver to UMC, but only with call in orders, and started to do more work with Tech and more the TTU Football Department. My father, Phil Flores, became close with the Pirate, Mike Leach and so we started to feed a lot of there staff and even handle the orders for all their football camps…like we literally had to shut down on Saturday’s and focus all our attention to delivering 100’s upon 100’s of burritos for breakfast and lunch. Although a taxing task, we did get to meet some awesome people. We had the pleasure of feeding and meeting Mike Leach and all the coaching staff, met Kliff Kingsbury when he first came to Tech and said goodbye the day he left (super nice guy). Got to see Kevin Curtis, in his new ride after he decided to go pro and before he was drafted to the Raiders. And most importantly meeting and dealing with Jennie Bailey. Look her up and you can see how important she was to TTU. Needless to say, we met and dealt with lots of people from Tech who have gone on to become famous or do important thing in society.
We were a business that loved our customers and would do anything we could for them. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would shut down the day before and would and create a feast for all the students that either couldn’t go home or really for anyone that didn’t have a place to go. For game home game days, we would shut down a few hours before kickoff, make a beer run and would grill out for anyone who cared to join us…free beer, free food and sit and hear the game from across the street…how could it get better.
We continued to run the business until McDougal started to do the renovations around North Overton Area and in April 2003, we shut our doors.
With two young boys, I decided to take a more secure career path and my mother reluctantly retired and my father continued with his hair salon, but we always had that itch.
Fast forward, 17 years and with my youngest getting ready to enter his final year of high school, my mother, father and I decided to scratch that itch and start looking. We had a few close opportunities pop up, but the timing was never right…damn banks lol.
But then one day I saw Gigi’s Tortilleria was going to be shutting down. I reached out to them in September 2021 and then November 2021 it was mine…. crazy huh?
We decided to change our concept and that’s how we got to Jimenez y Friends .
Bob Shattuck used to say that we were home of the “King Size Burrito” (he used to do our commercials) but now with the new name, hopefully we will be known for “If We Have It We Will Make It”. Even though we will have a set menu, nothing will be off the table.
We were one of the innovators of the burrito phenomena here in Lubbock and how we’re going to try it once again but with a corn tortilla concept.
