While it may not be Taco Tuesday every time, you can get tacos (or other food) everyday at Tacos Al Carbon. Tacos Al Carbon is a food truck that specializes in lunch rushes and is located on the corner of Peach Street and South Egg Harbor Road, near Mazzeo Studio and the Historic Train Station.
The food truck offers Mexican food ranging from tacos, quesadillas, tostados, burritos and tortas and has choices in meat ranging from pork, chicken and beef. They also have specialty drinks that they offer in agua frescas, with the flavors including horchata and other fruits in watermelon, lemon, orange and more. They also have different lunch specials every day, where they’ll serve an extremely large burrito called El Chicano as well as mixing up their specials with bowls, nachos or a little bit of everything.
Tacos Al Carbon is a family business and was started by Mingui and Lorenzo Garcia. Lorenzo worked for Custom Sales when they both first started the business and they both had a five-year plan to see how the business is doing and had a backup plan in case it didn’t go well.
“We wanted to see if the business would take off and if the business didn’t take off, at least we gave ourselves five years to work on it. We had three small children and we figured they’ll be old enough for us and for myself to look for a full-time job if the business didn’t take off,” Mingui Garcia said.
Fortunately for the Garcias, the business did take off and has been going strong as they are celebrating 25 years of business. At the time, the Garcias were juggling soccer practices with the business schedule, which Mingui said that it fit with the lifestyle at the time for the family.
Eventually, their kids started growing into the business and the business started getting larger.
“The kids started doing events and catering jobs and they invested their time with us and the business so that worked,” Mingui said.
Mingui loves everything about the business, ranging from cooking, as she loves to cook, to her clients as she takes the time to interact with them. The one thing she loves the most is how much it has grown over the years, including the travel to many events and locations.
“We get to go to different locations and we get to experience different sites and venues between wineries, bars, weddings, special occasions we get to celebrate. We get to be a part of everybody’s life,” Mingui said.
Aside from the truck located in town, the business also has three other trucks, where the trucks get to participate in luncheons for different companies in places like New York, Pennsylvania and other states. They also get invited to participate in birthday parties, graduations, weddings, celebrations and a new location at Lazy Bass Bayside Bar and Grill in North Wildwood, where the truck will be there every Tuesday starting in June.
For anyone that were to start a business from scratch like the Garcias have with the food truck, Mingui advises those to not give up if you believe in it.
“You’re going to go through rough times and you’re going to go through rough patches but if you believe in yourself, you can get through anything,” Mingui said.
Tacos Al Carbon is located on 107 Peach Street and you can call to order at (609) 457-7859.
The hours of operation are Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Anyone that is interested in their catering services can go on their website at https://www.tacosalcarbon.org/
and can fill out a form under the Catering and Events tab.