Fresno’s 15th Taco Truck Throwdown was held on Saturday night, awarding prizes for Fresno’s top taco, top michelada, and top salsa at Chuckchansi Park downtown, alongside live performances by Waka Flocka Flame, Too $hort, La Sonora Dinamita, and Malo.
Taco Truck Throwdown, designed to celebrate one of the Fresno area’s proudest traditions (a taco truck scene rich in history, quantity, and variety) began as a promotion for the Fresno Grizzlies baseball team. Well, it’s still a Grizzlies promotion, but since 2018, the event has been staged separately from an actual baseball game, featuring tacos, essentially, as the main event.
A total of 21 taco trucks from around Fresno County competed for the top prize on Saturday night (minus one that had to drop out at the last minute due to illness), and in the end, both the Judge’s Prize and the People’s Prize went to first-time winners.
The Judge’s Prize
Decided by a panel of eight judges, grading each taco on a scale of 1-10, the Judge’s Prize winners shook out thusly:
First Place: El Taco Macho
Second Place: Tacocontento
Third Place: Vega Bros
This writer happened to be one of those judges, and while this didn’t exactly line up with my own top three (more on that in a future post), I did have them all rated highly.
The People’s Prize
The People’s Prize was decided by Taco Truck Throwdown attendees, who voted by scanning QR codes outside of taco trucks, which took them to the Throwdown website. Interestingly, there was no crossover between the judges’ top three and the people’s.
First Place: Tacos El Mandilon (Quesabirria taco)
Second Place: Tacos Jacinto (Shrimp taco)
Third Place: Anthony’s Tacos (Quesabirria/shredded beef)
Where to find them
Location: 2848 W Ashlan Ave, Fresno, CA 93705
Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 7 pm – 11 pm
Location: 700 S Demaree St/ Valero Gas Station, Visalia, California 93277
Hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 5 pm – 10:30 pm (closes at 9 pm on Sundays).
Location/Hours: Sanger, CA, hours and location vary. (559) 618-9236
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Hours and locations vary, but usually near S. Chestnut Ave. and E. Florence Ave. (2259 S. Chestnut Ave., Fresno, CA 93725). (559) 930-2497
Location: 4593 N. Cedar Ave
Follow for weekly hours.
Location: 21 E Shaw
Hours: Monday – Friday, 12 pm – 8 pm.
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Michelada Throwdown winners
Any town that loves tacos as much as Fresno probably loves micheladas too (a spicy, limey, tomato-based beer cocktail), and so, since 2021, TTT has been staging a Michelada Throwdown alongside the taco one.
Judge’s Prize:
Howie’s Micheladas (a first-time winner)
People’s Prize:
El Cejas Michelada Mix (a second-time winner, repeating from last year).
Salsa Throwdown winners
Can’t have tacos and micheladas without salsa, right? Alongside the 15th Taco Truck Throwdown and the 6th Michelada Throwdown was staged the 4th Salsa Throwdown.
Judge’s Prize:
People’s Prize:
Cuca’s, if you’ll remember, previously appeared in our Chinatown neighborhood guide.
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All in all, a successful evening of trucks, drinks, tacos, music, and fun.
And if you missed out on all the fun this year, there’s still time to grab tickets to the next best thing: Fresnoland Food’s first-ever Taco Crawl, featuring some of our favorite taco trucks. Wacka Flocka won’t be at this one, but we’re still betting on a good time.
