If you love tacos, this may be the golden age in Northeast Florida, with more restaurants featuring the fare on the way.
Some are aimed at families. Others are more upscale, with full bars featuring 30 or more usually hard-to-find brands of tequila and mezcal.
Beyond the dining preferences of consumers, more factors are driving the taco trend.
It may be a function of restaurant economics, said Robbert Bouman, professor of culinary arts and hospitality management at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
A Mexican- or taco-themed restaurant depends on a few basic ingredients and nearly every dish uses some of them. At a time when 10 chicken wings can cost a diner $15 or more, three basic tacos with tortilla chips and salsa cost between $9 and $12.
Dice some tomatoes, lettuce and onions, wash and chop a bunch of cilantro, grate the cheese and warm the beans and there are the makings of 15 or so menu items.
“Let’s say, you open a casual French restaurant, then you have to make a sauce for your veal, a sauce for your beef, a sauce for your fish, a different sauce for your shrimp, you see where I’m going?” Bouman said.
“If you look at the price of grouper lately, or the price of fillet of beef tenderloin, they’re way up. But ingredients like rice, beans, ground beef, corn, lettuce – I mean, all that is relatively low-cost.”
Food truck find
Mark Embrick, the operator of Jax Taco Truck, discovered the benefits of selling tacos in 2019.
Embrick sold desserts in a truck in Atlanta before moving to Fernandina Beach five years ago. He started with a barbecue truck but found it was hit or miss.
“I was cooking either too little or too much. And if I ran out, could I get some more meat? No, you have to smoke it. We love tacos and Mexican food because if I run out of ground beef or chicken, I can kind of run out and grab something and be back in business.”
For a food truck with limited or no seating, tacos can be made relatively fast and customers can eat them by hand while standing.
That’s perfect for feeding many customers during a lunch hour.
Tacos provide many upsell opportunities. There are extra charges for guacamole or queso dips. Tacos made with fish and seafood and better cuts of beef cost more.
Much of what we eat are Americanized versions of native Mexican dishes, Bouman said.
“I look at it from a chef standpoint. If you really researched tacos there are very few flour tortillas being used, it’s all corn-based. It’s typically not very spicy,” Bouman said.
“There’s typically no sour cream and no boatloads of cheese on top. So we’ve really Americanized some of that stuff. The people that are doing true, authentic stuff, that gets my attention.”
Embrick, who has an MBA from Mercer University, wants to expand to a fleet of food trucks with themes and doesn’t see a brick-and-mortar store as the best business plan.
“At the beginning of each month, you are $10,000 in the hole before you sell your first taco.”
Working an average of 15 days a month, he had sales of $120,000 last year. He wants to add more days in 2024 but he’s not just parking his truck somewhere and hoping customers discover him. He uses a food booker to hire him out for events.
“I like either the festivals or the big neighborhood events. I will go in there for three, four hours, get a big pop and then go home,” Embrick said.
Counting and competing
The number of taco restaurants does concern Matt Kemper, co-owner of Taqueria Cinco at 809 Lomax St. in Five Points.
Kemper and his partner, Eddy Escriba, cooked previously at Mezza Luna in Neptune Beach. They’d come up with food ideas that often reflected Escriba’s Guatemalan heritage.
Instead of a food truck, they opted for a traditional restaurant, which they opened in 2019.
It has a small interior that splits the cramped kitchen with seating for 20. The alleyway patio has capacity for another 70.
The patio seating provided the numbers to make the business feasible.
Due to space limitations, Taqueria Cinco has only a beer and wine license. It serves El Guitarron, a Mexican agave-based wine that is similar to tequila but not as potent.
“We’ve tried some others that are made in America but they don’t stand up to it. They’re not made with agave and don’t taste remotely like tequila,” Kemper said.
The restaurant had sales of more than $1 million last year, he said.
Taqueria Cinco is a two-stage business model. Lunch is counter service for speed. After 3 p.m., it becomes table service for a more relaxed dining experience.
“I feel like tacos are one of the main staples, at least in America. It’s like pizza or even Italian. Those are in heavy rotation all the time,” Kemper said.
Bouman agrees. “You want to go to an Ethiopian restaurant? And you’ll be like, I don’t know what that food is all about. You already know what the taco flavor profile is.”
But Kemper is concerned about the number of taco restaurants opening in the same neighborhoods.
In Jacksonville, the Riverside and Five Points areas are particularly attractive to taco operators.
“I think you can definitely get oversaturated. Look at how many Mexican restaurants there are in Jacksonville. I think the last time I checked, which was the end of last year, there were over 165.”
At the end of March, the bartaco chain, based in Arlington, Virginia, announced it was taking over the former Black Sheep restaurant building that is about a block from Taqueria Cinco.
There are six other restaurants plus a regular food truck in the Five Points and Riverside area that serve tacos.
Also coming to town is Alien Taco & Tequila Bar soon to open in the Shoppes at Village Walk along Gate Parkway.
Time for tequila
The venues will feature a deep bar with a variety of tequila and mezcal.
They are opening at the right time, said Barry Broudy of Broudy’s Liquors. He predicted a year ago that tequila would have its time.
“Actually, its time is now.”
Tequila beverages are currently the No.1 selling liquor category, Broudy said.
Scotch and bourbon aficionados now collect rare bottles like wine to own but rarely open.
Tequila fans want to try the labels they’ve never had before.
“They buy tequila to drink and share,” Broudy said.