Taco Boy – Downtown
180 Monroe Avenue NWWe were bad today. I was still asleep when J got home and she fell asleep before I got up. When I went in to give her a kiss before I went to work, she jumped out of bed to make me a sandwich for lunch. I was already running a little late so I just told her to forget it. I would just go somewhere for lunch.
My day at work is not usually spent sitting in front of a computer screen, but that’s how the day went. I was working on a project that kept me at a desk all day and when I got to a good stopping point (ie. had a headache from staring at the screen all day) I bolted for the door to go get lunch.
I had no idea what I was hungry for as I drove towards downtown Grand Rapids. I had a couple sandwich places on my radar, but I eat cold meat sandwiches every day. I wanted something different.
As I turned on to Monroe, I remembered the Taco Boy a few blocks down. When I worked at a different place out on the northside of town for a few weeks, everyone told me I had to go to Taco Boy which has another store on Plainfield Road near I-96. In fact, there are five locations in all with other stores in Walker, Wyoming, and Cascade.
The downtown location is right next to the Bulls Head Tavern across from the Amway Grand. Because of it’s location in the city center, parking isn’t really easy. There is an abundance of street parking and parking ramps, but nothing really close. I ended up finding a spot around the corner on Lyons Street and walking back.
The store is set up like a fast food joint. There’s an order counter in front of you when you walk in with a menu overhead. There is a few tables spread out in the rest of the space for customers dining in.
The menu is fairly typical of the fast food Mexican places. Their claim to fame is the Super Burrito, but I kept it simple and just ordered four hard shell tacos and an order of chips and salsa.
The bill was just a little over eight bucks and my food was ready before I could even check my email. Since I was working on a fairly big project at work, I decided to take my meal back to the office with me.
I dug in to the chips and salsa first. The salsa wasn’t super hot, but had a great fresh flavor. The chips held up well to the chunky salsa and I was a little surprised by how much I got. I was looking at the chips and salsa as a compliment to the tacos as a main dish, but they were a pretty good meal on their own.
The tacos were pretty typical of fast food tacos. Ground beef, cheddar cheese, and lettuce. The thing that stood out to me was the shell. They weren’t super brittle like most fast food places. The shell’s actually held up when you bit in to them. I got a couple containers of hot sauce to put on the tacos and this sauce turned out to be pretty hot. I went heavy on my first one, but pretty light on the other three.
Taco Boy is a really great alternative to the larger fast food chains. It’s a little more expensive, but the food is much better.
Chips and Salsa
Hard Shell Taco
SW Michigan Dining 