Taco Bus owner,Rene Valenzuela, opened his much-anticipated
Mexican restaurant in St. Petersburg on Feb.18,2 011.
Aimee Alexander
Photo Editor
Residents of St. Petersburg are in for a tasty culinary ride when the Taco Bus rolls into town this month. Rene Valenzuela’s popular Tampa roadside eatery revs up its engine to open a second location in
Pinellas County.
“We are very happy and excited to come to St. Petersburg,” Valenzuela said. He believes his loyal St. Petersburg customers will welcome this late-night food option. The current Tampa location is open
24 hours.
“There is night life here in St. Petersburg,” he said. “There are students who are up late, studying for a test until 3 a.m., but they might need a break. They can come here, then go back to studying.”
The Taco Bus is essentially a Mexican restaurant kitchen in a bus. Patrons browse a menu of authentic Mexican dishes and place orders at a walk-up window. There is both indoor and outdoor seating, but none inside the bus itself.
The menu has something for everyone, Valenzuela said.
“Not much will surprise people, but it’s definitely a different experience because it’s very low-key and prices are dirt cheap,” Valenzuela said. “You come here, you eat, you drink and you pay under 10 bucks.”
The food is prepared fresh daily, and Valenzuela takes great pride in this. Unlike many chain restaurants that add chemicals and vacuum-pack their tomatoes in plastic bags, Valenzuela said his tomatoes are diced a few minutes before they are eaten.
“You can see a difference in the flavor, the texture and the way it looks,” he said.
Nestled in the Grand Central District at 2324 Central Ave., the Taco Bus occupies an old used car lot, minutes from I-275, Tropicana Field and downtown. Valenzuela believes it is close enough for people to stop off for a taco on their way to a baseball game or a downtown event.
Valenzuela says he has a wide variety of patrons, from blue-collar workers to Porsche owners, from students to grandparents.
The Taco Bus got its humble beginnings 20 years ago visiting job sites and parking on street corners throughout neighborhoods in Tampa. The inspiration grew from Valenzuela’s childhood in Monterey, Mexico, where street vendors were prominent.
“If you go to Mexico, it’s everyday life,” he said. “It’s street food that sustains the people.”
Valenzuela learned to cook as a child from his friends’ mothers.
“The first thing I learned to make was salsa and tostadas and chips,” Valenzuela said; because he wanted to make it instead of buy it off the streets.
From there, he started a small business and would travel to the town market on Saturdays with a taco-
stocked cooler.
“First, I did it because I needed to earn a bit of money,” Valenzuela said. “But mostly, I would like to see the people enjoying the tacos.”
Although he eventually went on to study at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Valenzuela considers himself a cook, not a chef.
“We are all cooks,” he said. He enjoys that his food can make many people happy and that he can provide people a comfortable place to socialize that feels like home.
Valenzuela hopes to mirror the experience of what he does at home, where everybody eats and socializes in the kitchen.
“You do it because it feels so good to do it and you really don’t do it for the money—ever,” Valenzuela said. “Of course you’ve got to pay bills, but it’s almost like an afterthought.”
