Mexican Favorite Comes to Carolina

Patricia Castillo holds tamarind, lime, pineapple and melon flavored paletas, 2007. Photo by Layne Bailey, courtesy of Charlotte Observer.

La Potosina employee scoops fresh watermelon to make fruit paletas. Photo by Steve Watson, Jr.

We started selling just to Hispanics, but now many walk-in customers are Caucasian. When people come in here and they buy popsicles and they taste them, they are like, "Oh wow!" And that is so nice. It warms my heart.

- Patricia Castillo

In Mexico everybody loves paletas — popsicles — made from fresh fruit. Patricia Castillo and her father Ricardo brought that tradition from their native Guanajuato, Mexico.

On Main Street in the tiny town of Oakboro in Stanley County, the La Potosina paleteria fills orders for more than 150 shops and pushcart vendors throughout the Charlotte region.