Our story
A family recipe, still going strong.
Chololoy® is a family-owned business devoted to the family’s authentic Mexican flavors and to keeping Victor’s tradition alive.
Victor Hitchcock Medina
Victor’s passion for authentic Mexican flavors started in his hometown of León, Guanajuato. He set out to find a way to share his family’s recipes and came across the cookbook of his great-grandmother Nemesia García, from the state of Tlaxcala. In it he found the tortilla soup he had loved as a child, the first flavor he wanted to bring to others.
Victor in the kitchen, making the soup.
Old footage of Victor Hitchcock Medina, in a white chef’s coat, preparing tortilla soup the way the family still makes it.
From the family kitchen to restaurant kitchens
Victor settled in Seattle, Washington, in the late 1980s and set out to make that same tortilla soup in a dehydrated form that Mexican restaurants could use easily. Its quality and authentic flavor won over the largest Mexican restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest and Florida.
Many have tried to copy it. No one has matched it. This is the original tortilla soup the family has made for generations, made with 100% natural ingredients and no preservatives.
Victor’s Chololoy® Tortilla Soup has been served in hundreds of restaurants across these states:
- Arizona
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Montana
- Nevada
- North Carolina
- Oregon
- Utah
- Washington
- Wyoming
Four generations, one recipe.
- Tlaxcala
Mama Mecho (Nemesia García) keeps a family cookbook in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Inside: a tortilla soup.
- Late 1980s
Victor Hitchcock Medina, from León, Guanajuato, moves to Seattle and turns the recipe into a dehydrated seasoning restaurants can use.
- 1990
Chololoy Food Company is founded in Seattle. Victor wins the largest Mexican restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest as a customer.
- 1990s
Chololoy® reaches hundreds of restaurants in the U.S. almost entirely by word of mouth.
- 2013 · 2017
Victor’s siblings, Patrick Hitchcock Medina and Kristina Knutson, take over the business and relaunch it in the U.S. as Chololoy, Inc.
- Today
From tortilla soup base to everyday seasoning, now in restaurant kitchens across the U.S.
Carried on by Patrick and Kristina.
Since Victor’s passing, his siblings, Patrick and Kristina, have managed Chololoy®, keeping the recipes, the chef relationships and the family kitchen alive. Every order still goes through their hands.
More than soup
For years Chololoy® was used mainly to make tortilla soup in Mexican restaurants. Then the family began using it at home, and friends did too. Not just in soup but as a seasoning for pasta, seafood and modern dishes, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The product isn’t changing. How people use it keeps expanding.
Taste it in your kitchen.
Samples, orders or a custom blend: Kristina answers every message herself. Hablamos español.
kristina@chololoy.net(503) 703-7720