MEEKER | “It’s been truly a blessing to be welcomed by the community. I haven’t been here in 10 years, and I feel like I never left” said Hector Peralta, owner of Tacos El Rey, one of the latest places to grab food in Meeker.
Located on Market Street, Tacos El Rey offers a simple and delicious menu featuring favorites like California burritos, quesabirrias, super-fries and of course tacos.
OPENING
The location’s first customers enjoyed food on June 3, according to the business’ Facebook page. That opening day came after multiple months of setbacks and challenges, including a head-on-collision on Highway 13 that left Peralta unable to work for multiple weeks. Opening up also involved extensive repairs, remodeling and other normal obstacles like permitting. Peralta said their work on the building before opening included replacing the floors, cleaning walls, repainting the ceiling and adding gravel. They also replaced the stove and stove top, added a new fryer, and rearranged the kitchen for a more efficient workflow. “Little things here and there and little obstacles, but we’re glad to be here, open,“ said Peralta, who is still developing a system and adapting to the challenges of working in a working environment with less space.
Despite the challenges, Tacos El Rey has experienced success with their small operation and unique menu items, including the popular “quesabirria.”
Peralta told the HT the simple dish was traditionally more of an add-on, or appetizer for larger entree items, but due to word-of-mouth and social media popularity has quickly become a goto menu item, with customers ordering 10, 20 or more at once. “I was like, you know we can try it out. If they don’t like it then we can replace it and it just happened to be a huge success,” he said.
The defining aspect of the quesabirria (above) is not the tortilla, cheese, or even the meet, but the broth/stew called “birria,” a traditional dish from Jalisco, Mexico. “My mom’s birria is probably one of the best things that I love to eat,” said Tacos El Rey owner Hector Peralta. Lucas Turner Photos
LEGACY
Peralta said the menu selection was influenced by his time growing up between San Diego, California and Nayarit, Mexico. He also attributed the careers of his parents Francisco and Angelica who owned and operated multiple restaurants including his dad’s Meeker location, Los Koras. Together the family has also operated restaurants in Rifle, San Diego, North Dakota and Louisiana.
“My mom also had a restaurant in Rifle at the same time. So I’d just kind of go back and forth and then just be working in the kitchen,” Peralta said, reflecting on a lifetime spent in and around kitchens going all the way back to his Mom’s first restaurant in San Diego. “I remember being there when they were painting walls, building the kitchen, building tables, and just kind of being around all of that” he said.
That family legacy inspired his passion for cooking and also informs his confidence as a first-time restaurant owner.
“The legacy I guess speaks for itself. I mean, we’ve been doing this for 30 years,” he said, recounting instances when he ran his parents’ restaurants on his own for days at a time. “Whatever business that my parents have gotten into, and that they have taught us, we’ve been pretty successful,” he said, adding, “and we’ve had a lot of happy customers.”
Confidence, experience and family history aside Peralta was initially hesitant to follow in his parents’ footsteps. “I always said, I’m gonna stay away from the kitchen, I don’t want anything to do with the restaurant business,” he said, describing how he wanted a less demanding work schedule than what one his parents had. That perspective has shifted for Peralta, who now sees business ownership as a means to a flexible work life balance, rather than an obstacle, “I’ve kind of made it a point to take a day off, or two days off, or, you know, to be around with my family,” he said.
Plans and promises
“As the time goes by, I hope to enhance my menu a little bit more. So there’s always something new and there’s something different,” said Peralta, reminding new customers that his family legacy should inform their choice to give Tacos El Rey a try. Word of mouth in rural Colorado also spreads quickly, which is why the new establishment is already seeing success. Peralta also encouraged returning customers to try something new “all I can ask for is their trust, for them to order something else, and make them fall in love with something new,” he said.
Reporting this story was our/my first time trying quesabirrias, and without bias or violating any of our own ethical reporting standards, we can say objectively, they are delicious.
BY LUCAS TURNER | [email protected]
