The story below is from our September/October 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photo above: You can mix and match tacos, like the excellent lengua and al pastor with pineapple / Photos courtesy of John Park.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to John Park for the video as we share a sneak peek behind our dining coverage and what you’ll enjoy on Taco Riendo’s menu!
The beloved food truck-turned-taqueria dishes up fresh flavors with excellent quesabirrias, tacos, gorditas and more.
When you walk into a restaurant and see another local restaurant owner dining there, especially when you’re at a taqueria and the proprietor in question owns a mini taco empire. When I dined at Taco Riendo’s new brick-and-mortar for Sunday lunch, the dining room was filled with families, couples dressed in their casual Sunday best and a steady stream of patrons awaiting takeout orders, everyone eager to get their fill of tacos, burritos, gorditas and more from the Williamson Road taqueria.
Taco Riendo’s menu is compact but invites customization, so it’s helpful to start by choosing your format — taco, burrito, quesadilla, ensalada, gordita (fried, hollowed-out and stuffed corn rounds), sope (fried masa base with refried beans), huarache (masa topped with refried beans, in an oblong shape that resembles its namesake shoe), mulita (where fillings are sandwiched between two crispy corn tortillas) or torta (sandwich). From there, choose your protein (or vegetables), like succulent lengua (cow tongue), al pastor (roasted pork; I recommend adding pineapple) or tender carne asada (steak), which is also popular combined with chorizo. Milanesa de pollo or de res, breaded chicken or steak, are popular picks for tortas.
But your menu indecision may also be compounded by a longing for the deservedly popular quesabirrias, tacos filled with slow-braised beef perfumed with guajillo peppers and folded into tortillas with melty mozzarella. The tacos are then griddled in the rendered beef fat, which gives the dish its signature reddish tinge and crisp exterior. They’re served with a luscious beef consommé studded with bits of braised meat, ideal for taco-dipping (and spooning and slurping). Oh, and you’ll want an order of the terrific guacamole, studded with tomatoes and threaded with an undercurrent of lime, paired with freshly fried tortilla chips. (Chips and salsa are not served here.) Then there are also the fan-favorite tacos Dorados to consider, stuffed with shredded seasoned chicken, rolled into tidy cylinders and deep-fried to order — which is also one of co-owner Jaime Sifuentes Reyna’s go-to dishes.
Opening a permanent location is a dream come true for the Sifuentes Reyna family. Jaime started Taco Riendo as a food truck around 2009 when he and his brother, Clemente Sifuentes Reyna, traveled to Roanoke from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, every weekend to sell tacos and produce at Happy’s Flea Market. Jaime said he didn’t know much about food service back then, but his tacos, burritos and quesadillas quickly gained a following, so he recruited his mother and wife, Angeles Sifuentes Reyna, to help build the business.
When the flea market closed in 2016, the family decided to move to Roanoke and set up the food truck on Williamson Road, next to Reyna Produce, a Mexican grocery store operated by Clemente, later adding an awning and a small seating area. In 2020, they upgraded to a larger trailer; when Clemente bought the building next door, a former tire shop, in 2022, Jaime knew it was time to build a restaurant. The team renovated the building, installing new floors, roofing, walls and plumbing, adding booths and tables and hanging pictures from Mexico and the United States to represent the cultures of their split customer base, before holding a grand opening for the restaurant in April 2025.
Besides offering plenty of seating in an airy, comfortable dining room outfitted with tables and booths, the restaurant’s expanded kitchen has enabled the Sifuentes Reynas to augment their menu too. Angeles has put her stamp on it with several creations, including Pizza-Birria, a popular mash-up dish in California that features birria and mozzarella between two large consommé dipped-and-griddled flour tortillas and sliced like a pie, and Choripapas, French fries topped with shredded melted mozzarella and crumbled Mexican chorizo.
The item she dreamt of adding to the menu for the longest time is hamburguesa Mexicana, fashioned after a popular street food staple in her and Jaime’s hometown of Moctezuma in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. (Their town is proudly marked on a painted map that hangs at the back of the restaurant.) She picked her favorite toppings to come up with her ideal burger: a juicy beef patty topped with sliced ham, Mexican sausage, mozzarella and American cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado and mayo. It all adds up to a supremely savory and satisfying mouthful (and is even tasty cold the next day). The carne asada takes a starring turn as part of a platillo, which Jaime says is a popular way of serving it in Mexico, too. The steak is marinated in lime juice and a little steak seasoning, then seared on the flattop till nicely charred, then plated with rice, refried beans, salad, pico de gallo and tortillas.
All entrees are served with roja (red) or verde (green) salsa. When you dine in, the plastic squeeze bottles on the tables invite you to doctor up your bites to taste (the yellow bottle contains red salsa, the spicier of the two, and the green one holds green salsa). Both salsas start with a base of tomatillos, garlic, cilantro and onions, but the red gets amped up with piquant dried chile de arbol, while the green gets its medium-heat from boiled-then-puréed serrano peppers. Wash down your meal with an agua fresca, such as Jamaica, a sweet-tart beverage made with steeped, dried hibiscus flowers, or one of the bottled sodas, like a fruity Jarritos or a Mexican coke.
If you’re left with a hankering for something sweet, check out Elotes Reyna, a snack and ice cream truck operated by Francisca Luis Reyna, Jaime and Clemente’s cousin, that’s permanently parked next to Reyna Produce. Here you’ll find ice cream, banana splits and refreshing treats like fresas con crema (strawberries with cream) and raspados (shaved ice with fruit syrup), just the thing to momentarily quell your near-instant craving to return to Taco Riendo for your next flavorful feast.
The story above is from our September/October 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
