Rock and tacos at Taco Reho
After spending the last 10 years living in Los Angeles, Billy Lucas wanted to bring some of the West Coast’s food truck culture to his native Delaware.
Lucas partnered up with Nage owner Josh Grapski to create Taco Reho, a food truck that brings together SoCal tacos with Lucas’s former career in the music industry cooking for bands and their crews. The two decided to make Big Chill Cantina the truck’s home base and opened two weeks ago.
The truck uses traditional Mexican techniques with influences Lucas picked up during his road crew days, when he cooked for artists such as Drake, Jay Z, Nine Inch Nails, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Blink-182. The truck itself reflects Lucas’ love of music with its guitars – including an upside down Fender Stratocaster for his favorite, Jimi Hendrix – and amplifiers tuned up to 11, a la Spinal Tap.
His introduction to the music business was by accident; Lucas’s sister was a costume designer on tour with Christina Aguilera and she mentioned the possibility of catering for artists and their crews. A year after inquiring, he was hired for his first tour with the Jonas Brothers. Lucas said the flow of cooking every day on tour, and being able to adjust on the fly, is similar to the food truck.
The menu at Taco Reho is ever evolving, Lucas said, but he intends to focus on eight to 10 items that rotate in and out. Among items that have been served already are duck mole, chicken tinga, ancho-braised short ribs and chili-based salsas on homemade tortillas.
“There’s so many different tacos out there. I don’t want to bore these people. I really want to explore all these possibilities,” he said.
Lucas said he wanted to do a taco truck because it was a fairly new concept to the Cape Region and would allow him to push the envelope of flavors and spices. Despite spending most of his career on the West Coast, Lucas has Delaware roots.
“I grew up here. My parents had a house in Dewey so I would spend the summers down here. I had my first job down here at Theo’s, late nights, and I just came back,” Lucas said.
While L.A. is known for its food truck culture – Lucas said he didn’t want to do one there because it is so competitive – Taco Reho is more inspired by the truck scene in Portland, Ore.
“I think it’s a little more community-based in Portland,” he said.
While Big Chill is the truck’s central location, Lucas said he plans to take it on the road, popping up at special events like Punkin Chunkin and other places where lots of people are gathered.
Taco Reho is open from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., Wednesday through Monday. For more information, visit Taco Reho on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Location information can be found on the truck’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/tacorehotruck.
