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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
A spread of Local Taco’s chips, salsas, queso and guacamole.
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Photos by Sarah Finnegan.
Local Taco, a regional chain with a Mountain Brook location, recently opened a new store front in the Colonnade. This location – their second in the Birmingham area – will offer both fast-casual service and a sit-down tequila bar.
A new taco spot has opened up in the Colonnade shopping center.
Local Taco opened its second location in the Birmingham area on April 2, but this time with a new concept. While the first Local Taco in the area, located in Lane Parke in Mountain Brook, opened as a full service restaurant in November 2017.
The Colonnade location, however, will offer both fast-casual service and a sit-down tequila bar, said Jess Eccher, director of marketing and brand development for Halo Restaurant Group.
Halo has acquired three Local Tacos in 2016 and has continued to open more locations.
“It definitely allows us to reach everybody,” Eccher said. “If you want full service, you can go one place, or if you want fast casual, to grab a quick lunch, there’s this location. … It really gives a lot of options to our customers.”
The tequila bar also offers a good place for friends to stop by and hang out, Eccher said, and while the restaurant’s hours are listed as 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, the bar stays open until 11 p.m. or midnight a lot of nights.
Local Taco aims to be exactly what its name implies — a “local taco joint,” Eccher said, and the Colonnade provided an ideal spot.
“We love Birmingham, and we found that shopping center and it actually was such a great space,” Eccher said. “It’s quite large.”
Since opening, Eccher said they have had a lot of support from the community. Its location on U.S. 280, she said, meant that more people in the Greater Birmingham area are able to stop by.
“A lot of people are super excited that we’re in the Colonnade area,” Eccher said. “It’s a lot more accessible than our Lane Parke location.”
The Local Taco menu is the same at all seven of its locations, and includes “inventive and creative” tacos, Eccher said.
“Our Nashville hot chicken is our best seller by a landslide,” Eccher said. That taco includes fried chicken in a house hot sauce, poblano cream sauce, coleslaw, cilantro and pickles.
Other items on the menu are the “Alabama white,” which includes smoked chicken, coleslaw and Alabama white sauce; spicy Baja shrimp with fried shrimp, pickled onions, coleslaw, pico de gallo and a “boom boom sauce.”
All of the tacos are $3, and Eccher said their house margarita special is also popular. Rather than have a happy hour special, the Local Taco house margarita is always priced at $3.75, she said.
“You really can’t get a margarita that cheap and that great anywhere else,” she said.
Local Taco
WHERE: 3419 Colonnade Parkway, Suite 100
HOURS: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
WEB: localtaco.com