Meet Danielle Jackson, the woman behind ElleRae’s Taco, Salt City Market’s newest vendor

When Danielle Jackson was 12 years old she cooked her first Thanksgiving meal for her entire family. A couple decades later she developed a knack for cooking tacos for her friends and peers.

This early moment was just the beginning of Jackson developing her skills as a self-taught chef. 

“It’s always been in my family,” Jackson said. 

ElleRae’s Taco is Jackson’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant and it is located inside Salt City Market at 484 S. Salina St. It opened earlier this year. The restaurant serves selections from street-style and Birria tacos, quesadillas, chips and guacamole, rice and beans, and Mexican drinks. 

Jackson was the 2023 recipient of the CenterState CEO’s Growth + Equity Fund, funded by Centerstate Corporation for Economic Opportunity and the Allyn Foundation. She has a three-year contract for operating her business inside of the market. 

“That was honestly the best thing for us. I tried to get my loan somewhere else and it didn’t happen,” Jackson said. 

Years before Jackson decided to share her culinary creations with others, she picked up lessons from her family and the popular cooking show America’s Test Kitchen. 

Jackson grew up in San Jose, where she spent most of her life surrounded by a family of skilled cooks who prepared food together for all occasions. Her mother often made dishes for the church she attended. 

Some of her earliest cooking memories came in her childhood home preparing meals with her mother and grandmother. She remembers how her mother taught her to cut an onion and encouraged her interest in cooking by allowing her to be in the kitchen and explore.  

Jackson picked up on cooking etiquette from America’s Test Kitchen. She learned how to properly wash and cook various foods, which pots and pans generate the best sear, and the kinds of meats to use for dishes.

While Jackson had not quite figured out what she wanted to do professionally, she naturally gravitated toward cooking and always found her way back to it throughout her life.

It wasn’t until Jackson came to Syracuse almost a decade ago that she pursued becoming a chef.

While working as a transportation security officer for the Transportation Security Administration at the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Jackson explored Cal-Mex recipes. 

“It was a mindset, a change of heart, a change of mind, and just wanting something different,” Jackson said.

Jackson invited friends to her home and cooked tacos. Her friends encouraged her to start selling them. 

She began making meals for her friends and colleagues on Taco Tuesdays. A shift change prompted Jackson to transition from Taco Tuesdays to Taco Thursdays.

She prepared the dishes out of her home for friends, co-workers, and patrons for about before pursuing a plan to find a physical location. 

As her style garnered attention and interest, her vision for ElleRae’s Taco began to percolate. 

The flavors and taste of the Cal-Mex cuisine Jackson prepares are connected to her first home, San Jose.

Jackson believes that her pathway to becoming a chef felt natural and her move to the culinary industry was inevitable. So when she saw the opportunity to start her business at Salt City Market, she knew it was the right time. 

She and her fiancee Angel named ElleRae’s Taco after Jackson, her grandmother, and her father. They took the end of Jackson’s name, Danielle; the end of her grandmother’s name, Estelle; and her father’s middle name, Ray.  Jackson said ElleRae sounds like “el rey,” which in Spanish means “the king.”

Even though it’s only been a month since ElleRae’s Taco grand opening at Salt City Market, Jackson is already seeing familiar faces, remembering food allergies, and exchanging heartfelt greetings with patrons.

“This whole process has made me realize, just do it because it’s already written. So, just go ahead and start walking in those steps as if you’re in that gear,” Jackson said.