From Chula Vista's Third Avenue to now Imperial Beach, Tacos El Vaquero is on a mission to conquer the whole south bay.
At the helm of Taco El Vaquero is Alex Morales, a young Chula Vista native who grew up in a family that has deep roots in the food truck industry. His family are all from Tijuana, the city that is widely recognized as the city that provides the best tacos in all of Mexico.
Alex has been operating on Third Avenue since 2019, offering locals in Chula Vista a location to enjoy some tacos every day after 5 p.m., typically open until midnight, which is just the right time for locals in the area to leave work, go grab a beer and follow it up with some authentic-style food.
Morales considers himself a young working man who is willing to take any opportunity in front of him if it means a potential blow-up for his brand. Just recently, Alex received an opportunity he couldn't turn down, when the owner of IB Fresh Co. Restaurant, Salomon Estrada, came to him and asked if he would like to also operate his business inside their building, located across the street of Imperial Beach.
"The owner of the place reached out to me and asked me if I would like to work alongside with him, so we are sharing this building thanks to the owner of IB Frescho, Salomon. I am basically running the kitchen of the place, and I am just happy to take advantage of this great opportunity he presented to me."
Although he comes from a family with deep roots in the food-truck industry, Alex never considered following that path when he was growing up in school. However, as soon as he received his Bachelors Degree from SDSU, an opportunity fell on his lap and he simply couldn't look away.
"I went from Chula Vista High School to San Diego State University, and soon after graduation I found this food truck posted on OfferUp that caught my eye. The guy selling it and I just negotiated and now I am here running this business for three years now." Morales stated.
On the contrary, Alex wanted to avoid running a food-truck as much as possible since he was younger, because he didn't want to follow his father's foot-steps. Morales says that his plan all-along was to jump into a career so that he could have a different path in life than his family's.
However, as time as gone by running this food-truck, Alex has discovered a profound love for the hustle and grind that comes with operating a business such as this.
"My dad had a food truck in Tijuana for many years, my aunts have food trucks in LA, multiple cousins who have their own birria food trucks." Alex said. "I always wanted to go to college to not end up operating a food truck for a living like my father, but here I am, ended up selling tacos like him, but I honestly really love it, I enjoy it more and more every day."
And although his Imperial Beach expansion marks a big step for his business, Alex says he isn't remotely close to being done expanding his brand. He hopes to one day be able to open several more locations throughout San Diego, the state, and even across our borders.
"I want to expand with more locations, but hopefully one day to the point where I don't have to be at every location like I am right now. I hope one day I can train managers to run several locations, managers who are willing to invest their time to allow me to teach them how to run a restaurant and continue to expand my brand locally, state-wide, or maybe even internationally one day, you never know."
The Chula Vista native says if you haven't tried Tacos El Vaquero, you're missing out on getting your hands on the closest thing to Tijuana tacos. The recepie, the avocados, it also has Tijuana written all over his products.
"I have a vision for this, and that vision is to be as authentic as possible with the quality of our food. My family has great experience in the food business industry, so there's experience behind the scene in the kitchen. We provide adobada as identical as possible to Tijuana's." Alex said. "I know that we are not in Tijuana, but I promise you that our food is 100% from there. Even though we are here in San Diego, my heart resides over there and it reflect in our quality of tacos." he added.
And as exhausted as Alex may feel running this business, he remains hopeful for the good things that are yet to come as a result of the effort he puts in to operate Tacos El Vaquero.
"The time and energy I invest in this is something I know will pay off in the end." Alex says. "I know that right now is a lot to handle, it's time consuming and can get exhausting, but in about 5 years I believe I can start to feel less pressure and be able to fully enjoy the ride."
