A look inside Fresno's Taco Truck Throwdown
"People down here are passionate about taco trucks."
Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown brought the best taco trucks in the central San Joaquin Valley to Fresno, along with performances from hip-hop legends Cypress Hill and Tha Dogg Pound.
Saturday’s 12th annual Throwdown was also the first to feature a competition for the best salsa along with the usual taco truck competition and a Michelada mix competition.
For founders Mike Osegueda and Sam Hansen, however, the event is about celebrating Fresno’s taco trucks and the culture they represent for many residents of the Central Valley.
‘Unapologetically Central California’
Originally started in 2011, Osegueda and Hansen had been friends for some time, with Osegueda working at The Fresno Bee and Hansen for the Fresno Grizzlies.
“My friend Sam worked in marketing there and was helping me carry stuff in my car after one event, and he said, ‘What do you think about doing a taco truck competition?’ and we kind of based it off of getting the best taco trucks from Fresno, from Selma, etc. and basically seeing which is the best taco truck in the Valley,” Osegueda explained.
Hansen originally had the idea to create the event to celebrate something that sets Central California apart.
“I grew up in the Bay Area in the 80s and 90s; my family is from here though,” Hansen said. “When I came down here in ’98 to go to Fresno State, there were two guys arguing if Madera or Fresno had the better taco truck.
“It was a big part of Central Valley culture, and it was different from what the Bay Area was like,” Hansen said. “People down here are passionate about taco trucks.”
Hansen began to float the idea to “celebrate things that are unapologetically Central California.”
Having covered local taco trucks before in a story called “The Taco Trail,” Osegueda had the connections for the trucks and Hansen the ability to communicate with the Grizzlies management. From there, the rest is history.
“We tried to get a truck to represent each city, a lot of people showed up, and it was one of the best-attended games that year, so the Grizzlies said let’s do it again next year,” Hansen said.
“That night, we realized we had something special,” Osegueda said regarding the first throwdown.
Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown grows
Since then, the Taco Truck Throwdown has grown and evolved, attracting more and more trucks and attendees every year.
In the third year, Hansen explained that the Grizzlies’ management wanted to expand the event to all food trucks. However, both founders argued that the event was solely to highlight taco trucks and to give them a platform where the businesses could be appreciated.
Hansen also detailed that through the help of Ray Ortiz, currently the entertainment manager for the Grizzlies, they were able to emphasize to the taco truck owners that the event was made for them.
“Ray Ortiz came back to the Grizzlies, and he was really good at speaking their language, speaking to them as someone that we valued and appreciated and conveying that this event is about them, not to exploit them,” Hansen said. “We’re trying to celebrate the culture and we’re truly appreciative of them and the tacos.”
On top of giving taco trucks a space to highlight their food, the Taco Truck Throwdown is also an outlet for Fresnans to show their appreciation and pride for their community.
“There’s a huge inferiority complex around Fresno, and I thought it’d be cool to have something to pride ourselves in, and the tacos that Fresno and the surrounding areas have are what we excel at,” Osegueda said.
As time passed, the Throwdown has come to represent Fresno and its rich taco community in multiple ways. In the fifth year of the Throwdown, the Grizzlies rebranded their jerseys as the “Fresno Tacos.” Some taco truck owners owe their existence to the event.
“One of the pride points I had was when the event had been around for a while, people had said “I started a taco truck just because of the TTT,” and I think that’s really cool,” Osegueda said.
Who won Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown?
Now, more than a decade later, the event features musical acts two supplemental competitions on top of the taco truck competition and has moved from the summer and into the fall to better accommodate attendees.
The Throwdown on Saturday also featured wrestling matches and local vendors. Attendees were able to slam Micheladas while watching wrestlers slam on the ring.
However, one thing has remained the same: good food is the star of the show – the best tacos, micheladas, and, now, salsa.
Jhoanna Hernandez, co-owner of Miche Firme, returned to TTT and won both the People’s Choice and Judge’s Choice trophies for best michelada. This is Miche Firme’s third year in a row winning the People’s Choice trophy.
“Honestly, it feels amazing. Every year, I get all these butterflies in my stomach. But once I’m here, I’m ready to go and ready to please people with our michelada mix for sure,” Hernandez said.
Miche Firme wasn’t the only three-time winner on Saturday.
Tacos La Vaporera won their third consecutive People’s Choice trophy. Owner Diego Alvarado explained the help that winning a title at the Throwdown brought to his business.
“The first time I won, I had a smaller following. After I won the first time, people want to come to your truck, they want to know what the hype is about, they want to taste your food and see if you really deserve to be called the champion,” Alvarado said.
Alvarado also explained that the Throwdown was a good way to expose the community to cuisine and culture.
“The roots of it are from our Hispanic culture, and for us to be able to come out and share that with Fresno is cool because not everybody that comes out to these events is Hispanic, and maybe not everybody has tried that certain type of taco that we bring, so it’s cool to just be able to come out here and do that.”
Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown is ‘good for my business’
Those deep cultural roots rang true for the People’s Choice trophy winner for salsa, Javier’s Mexican Restaurant. This was their first year at the Throwdown, with Greg Rodriquez, grandson of founders Lupe and Louis Duran, attending the event.
“My grandparents are very old-fashioned. They’ve done fundraising, they’ve given money to the community, they donated money to remodel [Arte Americas] in the very beginning. We just contribute to our Latin community and we support the community,” Rodriquez said.
Even for those who didn’t win, the Throwdown was an opportunity to show off their food and their cultural pride.
“I feel very proud to represent Mexican culture, and I enjoy sharing my Mexican salsa. I really like being here with the community, having everyone try our products, and I really enjoy interacting with the people,” said Rosalinda Garcia, owner of Guadalajara Restaurant and Cantina. “It’s good for my business, but I also enjoy the atmosphere that we Mexicans create,”
“I feel happy and very pleased because we’ve been coming for several years, but only to prepare and sell micheladas. Now it’s different because there are people who come to try the salsa, so I feel happy and glad that people are here and that they’re supporting us,” said Lola, who represented Lola’s Salsa by Pro Mix 559, sharing the same sentiment of pride.
In total, over 10,500 people attended the 12th Taco Truck Throwdown, according to a post by the Fresno Grizzlies.
People’s Choice Winners
Tacos La Vaporera – Taco Truck
Miche Firme – Michelada
Javier’s Mexican Restaurant – Salsa
Judge’s Choice Winners
Tacos Jacinto – Taco Truck
Miche Firme – Michelada
Miguel’s Salsa – Salsa
Editor’s note: Mike Osegueda serves on Fresnoland’s Board of Directors.
