Torchy's Tacos

By Eric Pulsifer Wednesday, 16 December 2009

AUSTIN — Chef Michael Rypka opened the first Torchy’s Tacos trailer on South First Street in August 2006. Before Austinites could order any food imaginable from the window of an Airstream, Torchy’s was one of the first gourmet food trailers in south Austin and helped launch the trailer eatery craze that has since consumed the town.

“It’s not like the trailer or the taco stand are a new thing. There were a lot on the eastside before, but there wasn’t really anyone doing it on the westside,” Rypka said. “We wanted to do something cool with tacos—to do gourmet street food and bring taco stand culture to the westside.”

In three years, Torchy’s has expanded to four locations and has grown from four employees to more than 100.

“My original partner bought a taco stand from his grandfather,” Rypka said. “He was going to remodel and resell it; instead, we fixed it up and started making tacos.”

Debuting Torchy’s with three tacos—green chile pork, beef fajita and chicken fajita—Rypka experimented with other items such as Cuban sandwiches and enchiladas before returning the focus solely to tortilla-wrapped treats.

“We just kept coming back to, ‘Man, this has to be about the tacos,’” he said. “That led to the taco of the month, and if they were popular, we added them to the menu. We wouldn’t put anything new on the menu unless it was like, ‘Wow.’”

These tacos of the month often make regular reappearances, like seasonal beers from a brewery.

“One thing I’ve learned: If you do something, and you do it simple, it’s usually a lot better than if you try to do all this other stuff,” Rypka said. “Even though our menu looks big, they’re just tacos.”

The menu has grown quite a bit, but Rypka said Torchy, the mischievous-looking red devil in a diaper that acts as the taco joint’s mascot, has changed very little since his creation.

“The first stab at it was with a girl from Kinko’s who worked with me all night coming up with a logo,” he said. “A local sign artist took that logo and brought it to the next level, but it’s still pretty close to the original one.”

Many diehard fans stick to the trailer park eatery on South First Street, but Torchy’s newest location offers a reason to venture south. Opened Nov. 19, the Torchy’s at William Cannon Drive and MoPac features the largest menu yet, with 13 tacos, including two exclusive creations: Mr. Pink, a seared tuna taco topped with cabbage, cotija cheese, cilantro, lime and creamy chipotle sauce; and Crossroads, a smoked brisket taco topped with grilled onions and jalapeños, jack cheese, avocado, cilantro and green sauce.

“We’re not really a Mexican restaurant. We have Mexican food on our menu, but it’s always with a different twist,” he said. “Don’t be surprised if you come in one day and see Kalamata olives on a taco.”

As Torchy’s has grown, Rypka said he keeps a watchful eye on the quality of the food he is offering.

“We’ve always been really diligent on the ingredients and the flavors we use,” he said. “I’m still going back and always looking at our sauces—always keeping an eye out for how we can improve.

“We just want you to have a good time. We want to recall that little kid in you that used to steal the cookie from the cookie jar,” he said. “I feel like we’ve kind of become a bit of an Austin icon, and that’s really cool.”

Opening a trailer eatery

“I get asked a lot, ‘Are food trailers a trend?’ and I think to some degree it is,” Rypka said.

Rypka said that from a start-up cost standpoint there are advantages to opening in a trailer, but there are also issues with doing it long term.

“I opened for a quarter of what it would have cost to open a restaurant. I do think it’s a good way to start, but—a lot of people will find this—it’s not necessarily a good way to stay,” he said. “It’s fine up to a certain level of business, but then it gets very difficult to pull of.”

One downside of starting in a trailer is how much business is dictated by the weather. From water hoses freezing in winter to pricey air conditioners rapidly burning out in the summer, the elements take their toll on trailers.

“We’ve pretty much replaced our air conditioners half-a-dozen times. They get worked so hard,” he said.

Even with air-conditioning, Rypka said having a kitchen in a tiny trailer leads to some high temperatures.

“At one point this last summer, it was 132 degrees inside the trailer," he said. "Even with four units, it won’t keep you cool."

The fate of Shuggie’s Burgers and Shakes

In August 2008, Rypka started a burger and shake trailer next to the Torchy’s trailer at the South Austin Trailer Park Eatery. Shuggie’s Burgers and Shakes gave Rypka a chance to apply a Torchy’s-like take on hamburgers. The menu included a variety tempting offerings, such as chicken and waffles, burgers garnished with chicken-fried bacon, ice cream-battered onion rings, green chile cheese fries and peanut butter shakes.

Shuggie’s closed in July after less than a year in business. Looking back on it, Rypka said Shuggie’s proximity to Torchy’s may have doomed it from the start.

“I think we opened it prematurely, and I think we should have done it away form Torchy’s. I think it was a mistake being that close because people would just opt for Torchy’s,” he said. “At our stage, we really just needed to focus on Torchy’s: the thing we’re doing good and the thing we’re doing right. You start learning in business, you’ve got to put your ego aside. I loved the concept, but if people aren’t buying it, they aren’t buying it. But, I think we closed it in a good fun way.”

Shuggie’s closed July 12 with a funeral-style memorial dedicated to Shuggie, but Rypka said the burger joint may not be gone forever.

“It may come alive again, you never know, but it would have to be in the right spot and probably in a brick-and-mortar building where we could serve beer and do some different stuff,” he said. “I think it needed to have more of a vibe like a place you can come hang out, like a sports bar.”

Torchy’s timeline

Torchy’s first brick-and-mortar location was inside a convenience store on South Lamar Boulevard mainly designed to be a production kitchen for the trailer. A second short-lived brick-and-mortar location followed on Sixth Street, then a second trailer next to Little Woodrow’s on Sixth Street. These locations eventually closed, but Rypka had better luck on South First Street near his original trailer.

“We got that spot more out of sort of protecting our trailer and because we wanted to get something that was close by that could serve people,” Rypka said. “We were nervous about it being so close, but what we found out is that people would come there if it was too hot or rainy or too cold. We ended up getting a whole separate group of people coming to that one.”

While Torchy’s is looking to expand even more in 2010, Rypka has an eye toward the future of his gourmet taco empire.

“We might end up in some nearby college towns,” he said. “I think we do well in the college atmosphere.”

Two more locations are slated to open in 2010: at Spicewood Springs and Mesa Drive in January and on Burnet Road later in the year.