Guests come to Por Favor Tacos & Tragos for the authentic Mexican fare, but hospitality is the real product. “You're supposed to have good food at a restaurant,” says Everardo Galvan Jr., who serves as the marketing director for his family’s taco cantina. “That’s the bare minimum. But we are going to treat you so right.”
For the Galvan family, who founded Por Favor a little over two years ago, food is a means of welcoming the community to their table. Their ethos centers on scratch cooking, traditional preparation and tacos inspired by the distinct regions and cultures of Mexico. “At Por Favor,” Galvan Jr. adds, “you are coming into our home, our kitchen, our dining room.”
From Mexico to California to Colorado
The Galvans originally migrated from Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico to Los Angeles, where Everardo Galvan Sr. and his wife, Maria, raised their family. Maria brought family recipes that would eventually find their way onto the Por Favor menu, while Galvan Sr. built a career in the restaurant industry.
In Jalisco, food is deeply connected to family and tradition. Recipes travel through generations, carried through family kitchens, markets and neighborhood gathering places. Food becomes memory, identity and a way of bringing people together. In L.A., Mexican food is part of an evolving Mexican-American culture. Restaurants, panaderias, carnicerias and mercados are where families share food and create a sense of belonging far from the country their families left behind.
In 2008, the Galvans' own journey was evolving, too. After the recession disrupted their plans in California, Galvan Jr. and his father made their way to Colorado Springs. They took jobs at Carlos Miguel's, learning the restaurant business from the back of the house to the front. They saved wherever they could. For a time, that meant sleeping in a car, showering at a gym and doing laundry at a laundromat. They worked, saved and kept moving toward the dream of building their own business.
A Flavor Journey
After more than a decade in Colorado Springs, the Galvans’ dream became reality when they opened Por Favor in 2024 on Centennial Boulevard. A second location followed earlier this year, on Voyager Parkway in Northgate.
The restaurant’s menu offers a culinary journey through Mexico, with tacos drawing inspiration from three different regions. In Jalisco, birria (a slightly spicy meat stew) carries the warmth of the family table. At Por Favor, Maria's family recipe—a guest favorite—is accompanied by something that goes beyond the plate: an explanation of what guests are eating and how the dish is traditionally enjoyed.
In the Yucatán, cochinita pibil (a slow-roasted pork dish) reflects a different culinary heritage, shaped by Mayan roots and centuries of cultural influence. Slow cooked in an underground oven called a pib, the dish is closely associated with family gatherings and communal meals.
Then there is Mexico City, where street food is woven into the rhythm of everyday life. Tacos, tamales and other antojitos bring people together in markets, on sidewalks and throughout neighborhoods. Food doesn't require a formal occasion. It simply requires people, a table and something worth sharing.
Community Through Cuisine
Ultimately, Por Favor isn't trying to recreate Mexico or California in Colorado Springs. What they have created is community, knowing that food is one of the most powerful ways to foster a sense of belonging and connection. Galvan Jr. talks about hospitality as a responsibility to notice what people need and to keep looking for ways to improve. “We don't want our service to be transactional,” he says. “We want it to be relational.”
That philosophy is perhaps the clearest expression of the Galvans' own journey. They know what it means to arrive somewhere without much and to work for a place at the table. Por Favor tacos introduce guests to Mexico with generational recipes, while the warmth and friendliness of the people behind the restaurant continually draw them back to a gathering place where they feel like family.
For more on Por Favor Tacos & Tragos, visit porfavorco.com