The Tacos and Tequila Festival lands at the Central States Fairgrounds this Saturday, May 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Getting in is free.
Seven food trucks will be competing: Es Taco N’ Madres, Green Chile Shack, Tacos Los Carnales, The Little Taco Bus, Poco Loco Mexican Grill, Malissa’s Frybread, and the Good Stuffed Food Truck. The fairgrounds bar will be running all day with margaritas, tequila shots, and beer.
How It Got to Rapid City
The festival started in Deadwood and ran there for a few years. When it ended, Jesse Lee, owner and operator of the Good Stuffed Food Truck, didn’t want to see it disappear.
“We didn’t want to see it end,” he said. “And so we kind of took it on and took it over and started doing it ourselves.”
That was a few years back. The festival has been in Rapid City since.
What Jesse’s Bringing to It
The Good Stuffed Food Truck runs on burgers. That’s what the truck is known for around the Black Hills, and Jesse isn’t pretending otherwise. He also isn’t skipping the taco competition.
“Events like this where you get to cook different things and different varieties, it’s what I love to do,” he said. “Not just burger, burger, burger. When you get to do variety, it’s pretty awesome.”
His read on the challenge is practical. The dedicated taco trucks cook tacos every day. He doesn’t, and he knows it. So rather than replicate what they do, he leans into his own recipes.
“I don’t cook it every day like the Mexican trucks do,” he said. “My challenge is trying to find recipes that will beat them, because how do you beat a taco truck that does it every day? We try to stay on our brand and bring our flavor, as opposed to trying to do what the other trucks do.”
The Competition Is Friendly
Jesse says the other vendors aren’t giving him a hard time about showing up. The pressure he feels is self-imposed.
“I think it’s more my showdown,” he said. “I gotta try to keep up with those guys. They’re happy that we’re doing an event like this for them instead of it just going away. There’s no beef… there’s just some good friendly competition between all of us.”
He caught himself on that one. There’s actually plenty of beef. Some of it will probably end up in a taco.
Saturday Details
Six hours, seven trucks, no entry fee. The fairgrounds bar opens with the event and stays open through the afternoon.
The Tacos and Tequila Festival is Saturday, May 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Central States Fairgrounds in Rapid City.
