It’s all about the food and love at Ignacio’s Puebla Street Food, a new Mexican restaurant near downtown Shawano.
Ignacio Ramirez-Juarez’s love for the food he grew up with in Puebla City, Mexico, inspired him to open the restaurant in early March.
“I just follow my heart,” Ramirez-Juarez said. ”When I was a child watching my grandma, my mother, my aunt cooking, that’s my way to cook.”
“There is no place around here that makes the food that he makes,” said Tiffany Ward-Ramirez, his wife and co-owner.
Sharing their combined love of this type of cuisine with the community is important to the couple.
Puebla is well-known for “street food.” Ward-Ramirez said that street food has a long cultural history.
“That doesn’t mean it’s sold out of a truck,” she said. “The concept of our street food comes from the women who cook at home, sometimes through the night, so that they can sell it the next day to support their families.”
This cuisine is food that takes a long time to prepare, featuring various flavors and textures. Great care and loving hands result in meals that reflect the rich culinary heritage of Puebla.
Ignacio’s is where customers can experience authentic and original food in Shawano that Puebla has been known for.
The most well-known food from Puebla, which is 80 miles southeast of Mexico City, is Tacos Arabes, which is on Ignacio’s menu. The main ingredient is pork that has been marinated for 24 hours before being put onto the trompo, a vertical rotating roaster.
“The recipe is a secret,” Ramirez-Juarez said.
Ward-Ramirez said that the pork recipe comes from the influence of Lebanese who emigrated to the Puebla region.
Talking about other menu items, Ward-Ramirez said that the brisket is cooked for six hours.
“It’s our top-seller here,” she said. “We go through a brisket a day.”
She believes local customers might just be comfortable with the “brisket” name.
None of the food is overly spicy, although there may be a few of the salsas that have a kick.
Salsas are made fresh daily.
Ignacio’s serves Mole poblano, a dish that has deep roots in Puebla.
“We don’t make that here, though,” Ramirez-Juarez said, noting the Mole poblano has about 25 ingredients. “It’s possible to make it here, but there would be no time to cook anything else.”
“Everything that we serve here is what you would find traditionally in Puebla,” Ward-Ramirez said. “It’s important to us to share that piece of the culture. Our concept is real, authentic, fresh food.”
Their Facebook page, Ignacio’s Puebla Street Food, teased the opening of the restaurant starting in December 2025 with photos of their dishes and stories of Ignacio’s family. They garnered more than 1,000 followers even before the restaurant opened.
The only time Ramirez-Juarez worked as a cook before opening Ignacio’s was for Corina’s in Cecil, which was his brother’s restaurant.
“My dad was a chef,” Ward-Ramirez said. “I grew up in the restaurant business.”
Her parents owned a small restaurant in Pound at one time.
When Ramirez-Juarez lived in Puebla, he worked in a few upscale restaurants. He was required to make things table-side for customers, such as crepes or Caesar salad and dressing, in his role as a server.
He emigrated to Shawano in 2000. He knew the family who had owned Flamingo’s in Shawano and worked there before working for Luigi’s Pizza and Pasta in Shawano in 2008.
The love story of Ward-Ramirez and Ramirez-Juarez started as friends while they both worked the front of the house as servers at Luigi’s.
“We started dating,” Ward-Ramirez said. “Everything else is history. We’d go out to Mexican restaurants together, but it’s not that we could ever find food like where he grew up.”
For customers familiar with Mexican food, there are slight differences with what is offered at Ignacio’s.
She explained that a lot of Mexican dishes are Americanized, using a lot of ground beef. Ground beef isn’t used in the dishes at Ignacio’s.
“A lot of the misconceptions is that every Mexican restaurant has the same food,” Ward-Ramirez said. “It’s like ribs. If you go to Texas, they’re different than the Carolinas and different than Kansas.”
“I like to experiment a little,” Ward-Ramirez said. “But we’re keeping the core of what they serve in Puebla. Ignacio likes to go to the core of where he grew up.”
Ignacio’s is keeping its menu small to start. They create daily specials, which are posted on their Facebook page.
Their extended family’s love and support help Ignacio’s to succeed.
Ward-Ramirez’s daughter, Trama Kay, 26, and son, Ryan, 19, work in the restaurant when they can. Ramirez-Juarez’s daughter, Alexis, 24, also fills in. He has three other daughters who live in Puebla. Ward-Ramirez’s sister, Tabatha, also works when not at her regular job.
Ramirez-Juarez’s brother, Saul, cooks at Ignacio’s when not at his job at Novolex in Shawano. He helped contribute recipes from Puebla to the restaurant.
The love that Ramirez-Juarez has for his hometown is evident from the large mural that covers the interior west wall.
It shows the two volcanoes that surround the valley where Puebla is located.
Ward-Ramirez and Ramirez-Juarez both note that the mural shares the love, heritage, legends and beauty of the area that inspired Ignacio’s.
AT A GLANCE
WHAT: Ignacio’s Street Puebla
WHERE: 230 E. Green Bay St., Shawano
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays
CONTACT: 715-201-0112 or pueblastreetfood@gmail.com
Ignacio Ramirez-Juarez stands with his wife, Tiffany Ward-Ramirez, in the kitchen of Ignacio’s Puebla Street Food Restaurant. The new Mexican-styled eatery opened in early March at 230 E. Green Bay Street in Shawano. Food originating in Ramirez-Juarez’s hometown of Puebla City in Mexico is the inspiration for the cuisine, which is a little different from the typical Mexican food seen in the area. (Lynn Zaffrann)
