The humble tortilla is not merely a type of bread, but rather a foundation. And once you’ve eaten a tortilla the way it’s been intended for millennia, you realize not only what you’re getting at the supermarket is a farce, but that people tend to focus on what’s inside the package and not what’s holding the meal together.
These days, an increasing number of Atlanta restaurants, like Beto’s Tacos, Polanco Taqueria, Ford’s BBQ, Rreal Tacos, and Superica, along with food trucks like Vice Tacos and specialty shops like Poco Loco, are serving and selling tortillas made with heirloom ingredients and processes. Many of those tortillas are produced locally, including by Aaron Harris and his team at Molino Tortilleria.
Located near I-85 and the intersection of I-285 in northeast Atlanta, Harris founded Molino in 2019 while living in Michigan. At first, it was simply about making gluten-free tortillas for his wife. He was underwhelmed with the options found at the grocery store.
“That sent me down the path of [learning] what makes a good tortilla,” he said. “A lot of times it’s kind of like an afterthought.”
Back then, Harris was mainly familiar with flour tortillas, a standard where his grandmother grew up in the region of Chihuahua, Mexico. Harris learned that masa harina was the key to a good tortilla. The corn flour is made through nixtamalization, a traditional Mesoamerican process that cooks and steeps dried kernels in an alkaline solution to help make corn easier to digest.
Armed with a molino — a traditional Mesoamerican corn mill — and periods of experimentation, Harris said he eventually cracked the code.
Limestone sets masa harina apart from other corn flour. Harris lets his corn soak overnight for 10 to 12 hours. In the morning, he and his team grind the corn into the molino with volcanic stones, creating masa (dough) used to make tortillas.
“While the corn cooks and soaks, it infuses nutrients like calcium, and it releases some trapped nutrients like niacin, and then also adds some B vitamins,” Harris said. “It makes it a more complete food than it would be just corn on its own.”
Nixtamalization, Harris said, is why Mesoamerican cultures were able to thrive off corn, beans, and squash. And it’s how Harris ended up developing his ideal tortilla —one that didn’t break apart when folded, maintained a slightly earthy taste, and complied with his wife’s restrictive diet. He posted his experiments on social media.
“You could tell that people were really engaged by what we were doing and wanted to learn more about it,” he said.
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Next, Harris joined the St. Joe Farmers Market in Stevensville, Michigan, selling 25 bags of Molino’s hand-pressed tortillas in eight minutes on the first day.
Harris locked down a lease on a facility he intended to use to start producing tortillas for local restaurants. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020 altered his plans.
Instead, Harris transitioned Molino’s operations, selling pastries, slow-cooker carnitas meal kits, tableware, and kitchen tools, like stone-ground molcajetes (a mortar and pestle made with lava rock).
He also struck an heirloom corn partnership with Granor Farm in Twin Oaks, Michigan, to help produce red corn tortillas made with Granor’s red conical and Wapsie Valley corn varieties. Both corn varieties have been used for centuries to make red corn flour for tortillas.
As time progressed, Molino Tortilleria entered the farmers market circuit, including markets at Wicker Park, Green City, and Logan Square in Chicago, where Harris grew up. A year later, he relocated his family and Molino’s tortilla operation to Chicago.
But when his brother died unexpectedly in 2022, Harris and his family pulled up stakes again, this time moving to Atlanta to be closer to family in Georgia.
Once settled in their new home, Harris set up the tortilleria in a commercial kitchen space at Prep Kitchen, expanding to a larger space in 2023. Despite having no wholesale customers at the time, Harris took a gamble and installed equipment needed for higher-scale tortilla production. The risk, he said, paid off.
“We discovered Molino when they came to town,” said Chef Nick Melvin, owner of Poco Loco in Kirkwood and Communidad Taqueria, opening soon in the Old Fourth Ward. “[Their product has] become our favorite corn tortilla in the city — super smooth, not bitter, and something [that kids and adults both like],” he added.
Molino Tortilleria currently produces between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds of tortillas daily, which are sent to nearly four dozen businesses and restaurants each week.
Harris wants to reconnect local farmers with heirloom and organic corn to help create more demand for these varieties in Georgia, not just for his business, but for other tortillerias and restaurants making hand-pressed tortillas around the state.
Molino currently collaborates with DaySpring Farms in Danielsville to source Wapsie Valley corn. Last year, Harris said they sourced 6,000 pounds of corn from DaySpring Farm, which owner Murray Brett grew independently of the partnership.
“If we can have corn that’s grown in Georgia, processed into tortillas in Georgia, that goes to restaurants in Georgia or the Southeast, then that’s a much smaller supply chain,” Harris said.
In addition to local restaurants and the Grant Park and Decatur farmers markets, people can purchase Molino’s tortillas at shops like The Spotted Trotter, Oak Grove Market, Evergreen Butcher & Baker, and La Niña Michoacana (Peachtree Corners), as well as on online delivery service Fresh Harvest.
Molino Tortilleria, 3781 Presidential Pkwy, Atlanta.
