Authentic Mexican food and drink truck brings a taste of Mexican culture to Carbondale:
Owners of Cielito Azul Aguas Frescas by La Galeria, Laura Chairez and Rodrigo Ramirez stand in front of their truck Sept. 28, 2025 at Rendleman Orchards in Alto Pass, Illinois.
In the parking lot of Rendleman Orchards on a Sunday afternoon, music plays from a bright teal wooden trailer owned by Laura Chairez and Rodrigo Ramirez, which is selling authentic Mexican food and drink. Their goal — through the truck — is to connect Mexican culture to the Midwest.
Cielito Azul Aguas Frescas by La Galeria opened last September and has brought unique flavor to Carbondale through original Mexican drinks and food. The couple has been inspired by the vast amount of drink flavors available in Mexico and decided they wanted to bring that to southern Illinois.
Chairez, originally from Mexico, owned a Mexican restaurant in Marion called La Galeria Mexican Cuisine and Creamery. That spot opened in October of 2019, when Chairez first had the idea of bringing authentic Mexican ice cream and paletas to the region. Through her restaurant, she met her now husband, Rodrigo Ramirez. La Galeria closed in February of 2023 during the tail end of the COVID pandemic, but their vision of bringing Mexican culture to the Midwest didn’t dim.
Co-owner of Cielito Azul Aguas Frescas by La Galeria Rodrigo Ramirez holds out a drink to a customer Sept. 28, 2025 at Rendleman Orchards in Alto Pass, Illinois.
Inspired by a mix of personal experiences and a documentary covering efforts of protecting monarchs, the couple pursued a new way to bring Mexican culture to the Midwest, through drink and mini pancakes. They frequently travel to Mexico and while they’re there, they notice Mexico has many more flavors of drinks compared to what’s here in the United States.
“We realized, like, when you go to Mexico, there’s like an infinite amount of the (flavors) and here you get three choices,” Ramirez said.
They wanted to bring those authentic Mexican tastes to the people here so they wouldn’t have to travel south to enjoy these unique flavors.
With a mobile truck, they’re able to travel to events and have the convenience of being where people are instead of relying on people to come to them. They often post where they’ll be set up during the week on Instagram at @cielitoazulaguasfrescas.
Chairez creates all the drinks from scratch and doesn’t use a recipe book. Some of the flavors are ones she grew up drinking and some are created by experimenting. Ingredients include local produce from orchards, and she’s learned to integrate seasonal flavors to the menu.
A drink sits on the counter of Cielito Azul Aguas Frescas by La Galeria’s truck Oct. 18, 2025 in the Kroger parking lot in Carbondale, Illinois.
According to Chairez, the mango drink often runs out and is a crowd favorite. Mini pancakes made with marzipan are also on the menu.
“I just let my heart kind of decipher what I want to make,” Chairez said.
Their logo consists of monarch butterflies, tying in Mexican culture through the Day of the Dead, when butterflies migrate from Canada and the U.S. to central Mexico. The inspiration for the logo came from a documentary titled “The Guardian of the Monarchs.” The documentary follows Homero Gómez, an activist advocating for the protection of monarch butterflies in Mexico. He went missing and was later found dead.
Photo provided by Cielito Azul Aguas Frescas by La Galeria
“And of course we watch movies and it’s funny because we watch movies and I’m like, you almost never cry, but she was just crying,” Ramirez said.
Chairez was moved by this documentary and decided to try to make a difference in protecting monarch butterflies by planting milkweed seeds and educating people about their significance to Mexican culture and for the well-being of the monarch. According to the National Wildlife Federation, milkweed is a monarch caterpillar’s food source and it can’t survive without it. Chairez has made it her mission to plant milkweed to protect future generations of monarch butterflies.
“Seeing the process of when they’re very tiny to when they become butterflies, like everything from their chrysalis and stuff… I fell in love with that and I wanted to do something to make a little difference,” Chairez said.
To encourage the community to help protect monarch butterflies, Chairez hosted an event on Oct. 18 in the parking lot of the Carbondale Kroger, where she gave away free milkweed seeds for customers to plant. She gave away over 10 packets of seeds. Next year she plans on releasing double the amount of butterflies.
