Set Your Watches

“It’s Tamale Time”

Walking through the farmer’s market, you can hear a shout above the crowd – “What time is it?” Shoppers stop to glance at their watches before the same voice that asked the question supplies the answer – “It’s Tamale Time!”

A vibrant energy emanates from the booth and the smell of fresh tamales is irresistible. The menu is pretty straightforward – a variety of tamales, specialty sauces, and a small variety of delicious Latin foods. “We do a few things, but we do them well,” owner J.R. McKinny says.

With a background in food service and hospitality, J.R. found waiting tables to be good money while working at a ski resort in Colorado. He recalls taking his first cooking job so he could get a ski pass – and found out he really liked the work and was good at it.

Growing up in a Mexican family, J.R. remembers food being central to family time. His grandma made and sold tamales out of her house for extra money, and J.R. says that his first food memories are from that time at her house, the smells and flavors still lingering in the recesses of his mind. “She’d offer you a plate of food as soon as you walked in the door,” he recalls.

Working in the food industry, J.R. says he never went hungry. “It’s a skill set where you can get a job anywhere in the world, so I went with it,” he explains.

He spent about fifteen years in the F&B industry before deciding to go to culinary school at his uncle’s encouragement. “I enjoyed every second of culinary school,” J.R. recalls, saying that it filled in all the puzzle pieces he knew he needed. While in school, he also spent time working as a Sous Chef and eventually Chef at Saltwater Grill in Panama City Beach, FL. He then went on to work at La Cocina on 30A in 2017, where he helped build the menu and streamline production processes.

During that time, the head chef wanted something different for the menu, so J.R. suggested that they give tamales a shot. “The first batch sucked,” he laughs. “But that’s because I made them just from memory and tried using fancy expensive ingredients. The good thing is, I knew what they were supposed to taste like thanks to my grandma.”

Later, the regional manager of the restaurant wanted something to eat and J.R. decided to give the tamales another go. He made a new batch, just using his grandmother’s original pork recipe, and this time, he nailed it. The regional manager said JR’s tamales were the best thing he’d ever had out of that restaurant, and with that, JR’s tamale making gift was discovered. “That was the lightbulb moment, so to speak,” he says.

“After that the stars aligned. Some things are just meant to happen,” J.R. recalls. He started off taking a job at a high end wine shop making less pay, but doing so gave him the complete freedom to create whatever he wanted. He saw the opportunity to be creative and test concepts and, most importantly, to take his tamales to the next level. “I knew I could mass produce tamales and make money on the side because my grandma did it,” J.R. says.

In the summer of 2018, J.R. took his products to his first farmer’s market in Panama City. “I was using a borrowed tent, a borrowed table, and wearing my chef coat so everyone would see that I knew how to cook, and almost died in the heat.” With a handmade sign his son Champ made and plenty of enthusiasm for his authentic family recipe, J.R. made a profit selling tamales at that first market and thought, “We might be onto something here.”

On the weekends, and between jobs, he and his wife and business partner Barre would sell tamales on the side. After Hurricane Michael, J.R. and his family traveled to Columbus. At first, the crew continued to sell tamales at farmer’s markets on weekends. In November of 2019 they began shipping their tamales, and in 2020, shipping tamales is what saved their business during Covid.

In May 2022, J.R.’s family tamale business opened their first storefront restaurant in Phenix City. In December 2023, their second storefront opened in Columbus at the Highside Market, Georgia’s very first tamale bar, offering tamales in a wide variety of flavors such as pork, chicken, smoked brisket, and even vegan roasted veggie.

J.R.’s main concern has always been that people enjoy the food. “My main goal is to serve food that people truly love,” J.R. says. “Everybody deserves to like their food…especially if they’ve paid for it.”

J.R. describes tamales as “time travel food,” explaining that for many, the taste and smell take people back to a place and time filled with family, community, and fond memories.

“Gluten free, soy free, dairy free, some are even meat free, but our tamales are not flavor free,” J.R. says. One of his favorite times is when he encounters farmer’s market shoppers who claim to not like tamales. J.R. offers samples knowing that his tamales are not like others, and most often, the samples seal the deal.

While It’s Tamale Time, a Latin specialty restaurant, is all about flavorful tamales, they also offer some other food options. In their Phenix City location, they sell breakfast tacos, quesadillas, street tacos, pozole soup, and grilled street corn. Their downtown location offers daily soups, salads, and street corn along with their full line of tamales. They also serve beer, wine, mimosas, and sangrias for a more social experience.

J.R. and Barre have perfected the art of tamale making, sharing a part of J.R.’s heritage for the community to savor. Moving forward, they plan to continue making mouth-watering Latin cuisine and are excited to host Highside Market’s Cinco de Mayo festival which will include a tamale eating contest, tamale making class, and pinatas for both children and adults.

Dedicated to quality, community connection, and good food, J.R. and Barre look forward to seeing what the future brings – and seeing that the clock stays set to tamale time.

It’s Tamale Time’s Phenix City store is located at 2319 Pierce Road. Their hours are Monday through Friday 7 a.m. – 7 p.m., and Saturday 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

The Columbus location at Highside Market is at 211 13th Street, Monday through Friday 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. If you want to send some tamales to someone special, you can do so through their website itstamaletime.com.

Look to their social media for updates on summer hours @itstamaletime on both Facebook and Instagram.

By Natalie Downey