Fat Tacos opens in Vienna
VIENNA — After a little more than a month in business, Fat Tacos, a new restaurant in Vienna, has made it mark with its menu with more tacos and a whole host of other ingredients.
Owner Chris Christian said the tacos are available from their physical location at 3209 Grand Central Ave. in Vienna and a food truck they have taken to locations in the area for private parties as test drives. The public debut of the truck was July 6 at the Point Park Concerts on the River series.
“We’ve been looking to get out,” Brian Singer said. “We thought about Ripley for the Fourth of July, but it was too big of an undertaking for us. They have something like 60,000 people down there.”
Fish tacos are served on Fridays, Christian said.
“Everyone likes their Baja Fish Tacos,” he said.
Christian said the fish tacos on Friday are their only special.
“The rest of the time we have our steak or shrimp tacos,” he said. “We also have chicken tacos. Everything is gluten free and fresh, homemade salsa and guacamole. We also have pickled onions.”
“Not only is it fresh, everything we serve in locally bought,” Singer said. “Everything is fresh; there’s no microwave in there.”
Christian said they also serve Mexican Coke, that’s Coca Cola made with real cane sugar.
For now, most orders at Fat Tacos are drive through; however, there are a few tables for outdoor eating.
Christian said he decided to locate at the old U-Bolt-Thru drive through because of the location on Grand Central Avenue.
“I grew up just up the street,” he said. “It was the Mister Fresh Drive Thru. At first we were just going to have the food truck, but the health department said we had to have a commercial kitchen. We can’t cook at home, so we turned this into our commercial kitchen.”
Christian said the location was more like a huge freezer box, but they have made it work.
Singer said reviews of Fat Tacos have been good.
“On Facebook we have a 4.9 rating,” he said. “We had one lady who didn’t like us; we think she might have been a spy for another place. We have more than 70 reviews.”
Christian said he returned to the area to take care of his mother and decided to open some type of food-related business that served fresh food to get away from food that wasn’t that fresh.
“It’s a healthy choice,” Christian said. “I think the area needs it and people don’t seem to cook like they used to.”
Christian said he decided to keep the menu simple so they could concentrate on being the best.
“We’re just getting started here,” he said. “It’s been a great start; we’ve sold 6,000 tacos already.”
After less than a month he said Fat Tacos has acquired a loyal following.
“We have people who eat here every day; they won’t eat anywhere else,” he said. “We have people who love us, they think it’s (Fat Tacos) the best idea ever.”
While Christian said he does not have plans for another location, he might add a few more tables around the building. He said they applied for a beer license but they were rejected.
“The ABCC said we had to sell groceries,” he said. “We’d have to put about $1,500 into it. I just don’t think it’s worth it. Then they told us if we wanted to be a restaurant-tavern we’d have to put up a fence and have it connected to the building.”
Christian said they bought the mascot to give the place a different look.
Singer said they looked at two models of donkeys for their mascot.
“It was a battle between her and one at an amusement park in New Jersey,” Christian said. “We got her at a Shawnee Trading Post, where she’d been sitting for 30 years, never been outside.”
Before they got it home some work had to be done.
“We had to do some work on her back,” Bumgarner said. “Her tail fell off so it was welded back and painted.”
“Her shoes are nice and black, but you can’t tell because the grass hasn’t been cut,” Christian said.