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Tacos for All

Tallulah’s Taqueria crowd-funds its way to a statewide empire

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Having surpassed their $28,000 target on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter, Newport’s Tallulah on Thames is set to secure a permanent location for its Taqueria offshoot in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence. The restaurant used pop-up taco events, social media and its considerable local reputation to drive people to the Kickstarter, surpassing the goal with 48 hours to spare. The Kickstarter offered some pretty interesting benefits, especially for the hefty pledges, including a pig roast that I’d be perfectly willing to attend should the backer be reading this. According to Tallulah’s the money raised will be used for a “good cleaning, minimal cosmetic renovations and equipment.” Tallulah can now move forward with their plans to open sometime in March.

Tallulah is no newcomer to tacos, it’s just that up to this point, they’ve enjoyed a fairly nomadic life. Like so many good adventures, it began with a humble repurposed hot dog cart and three farmers markets. If you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, which I made it my business to be every Wednesday in the summer, you got a selection of different perfectly dressed tacos, as well as horchata or a seasonal agua fresca to wash it down. Tallulah’s Taco cart kept rolling, setting up at The Shack at Dutch Harbor in Jamestown, as well as stalking people at local festivals. Most recently Tallulah’s Taco wanderings even found them taking over Farmstead in Providence for an evening. With a permanent location in their sights, finally its rambling seems at an end.

So many fine dining restaurants are spawning more accessible dressed-down offspring nowadays, and our local favorites are no different . Tallulah’s Taqueria will join Chez Pascal’s Wurst Kindow/Window, Thames Street Kitchen’s burger joint Mission and others, in bringing a no-compromises and locally-sourced approach to casual dining. Tallulah plan to keep costs reasonable by buying big and doing their own butchering, while maintaining their connection to local farms. I can only assume they’ll keep Chicken tacos with fresh avocado, chopped onions, pickled radish and lime from Tallulah on Thames friendly with the fishermen as well. When I saw swordfish scrawled on the paper plates they taped to their taco cart at the farmers market, I’d start imagining the fish, cilantro and pickled radish, and I couldn’t always just walk by. Soon many others will have the same problem.

 

 

Tallulah, Thames, Newport, Taqueria, Tacos, Kickstarter, the bay

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