SFist reports the tragic news that neighborhood icon Virginia Ramos, the Tamale Lady, is no longer allowed to sell her delicious tamales at Zeitgeist due to city codes and regulations and her lack of a permit. This is a serious bummer. Read on for more details from the Tamale Lady herself.

According to her Twitter, Tamale Lady is planning to have her 60th birthday celebration at the Eagle Tavern instead this year. If you have any ideas on how she can sell her tamales in the city legally, reach out to her there, or party with her at the Eagle on the 21st.

The age-old dilemma.  You show up at Zeitgeist famished and order one of their delicious burgers.  You do the time and wait the requisite 10-15 minutes while anxiously downing a beer, your mouth salivating from the aroma emanating from the grill and your ears perking up every time the cook shouts another name across the yard (or wait–I guess they don’t do that anymore?).

Finally, the moment of truth arrives, and just as you sit down back at your table ready to devour that poor defenseless hamburger, your hear that familiar siren song, “Tamales, tamales!”  But damn, you just got a burger!  What to do, what to do?

The Zeigeist Tamale Burger.  That’s what you do.  An unholy alliance of beef, bun, masa, pork, and Tapatio.  Take that KFC Double-Down!

Has anyone better capitalized on the “so drunk that everything I eat right now is the best thing I’ve ever had” market better than Virginia? She’s definitely saved me from more than one night where it seemed like sucking on old ketchup packets in my empty fridge at 2am would have been “dinner”.

The Tamale Lady celebrated her 57th at Zeitgeist two weeks ago and SFGate brings up this enlightening interview full of such gems as:

Is it still a surprise when you show up in a bar, or can people follow you on Twitter now?

I am all kind of places on the Internet. Face … Face … what’s that Face thing? I don’t know it, but my son put me on there, yeah. He does the Twitter, too.

Read on at SFGate.

I saw this inside Escape from NY right next to less-interesting memorabilia from the likes of Led Zeppelin and Peggy Bundy.

So aside from “She sells tamales to drunks” and “everyone is hella chill with that” we also know that the Tamale Lady appreciates her fans and has poor penmanship. But I want to know more. Does she have kids? Does she pay taxes? Was “tamale lady” ever “tamale girl”?

I guess if you have 20 minutes to spare you can get the full scoop about Virginia (that’s her name, dude) from that documentary on youtube. Yeah, it’s a couple of years old and we sorta covered it before, but it could use some more views. Especially if crap like the Grape Lady falling down and apparently ripping out her trachea is almost up to 5 million.

Hey film school readers, can you please do a doc on Omer the guitar guy next? Thanks.