Micklethwait Craft Meats team has announced it’s newest concept, Taco Bronco, set to open it’s first location this winter. The restaurant will serve a menu of slow-smoked shared plates, Texas-style tacos and scratch-made sides drawing its inspiration from Texas comfort food and homestyle, small-town Tex-Mex while serving from the window of a gussied up horse trailer beneath the backyard shade trees of Batch Craft Beer and Kolaches in East Austin.
The trailer includes an onsite pit where the team will smoke meat over a mixture of mesquite and post oak coals with a focus on dinner hours Thursday – Sunday offering on-site and to-go dining. Taco Bronco ownership team includes Tom Micklethwait — owner and pitmaster of Micklethwait Craft Meats and Micklethwait Market & Grocery — and longtime friends and colleagues Ren Garcia and Javier Montesinos.
Menu offerings will include shared platters featuring generous portions of slow-smoked meats such as barbacoa, pork carnitas and South Texas boar sausage served alongside locally-made tortillas and scratch-made sides such as spicy red beans, classic Spanish rice, roasted calabacitas, and jicama grapefruit slaw. Additional offerings will include a rotating menu of specialty tacos such as lamb birria, mesquite-roasted poblano queso, specialty barbecue sandwiches and tortas, vegetarian specialties, and housemade salsa including Bronco Sauce — a spicy toasted red-chile and garlic taco sauce. Micklethwait, Garcia and Montesinos all share in the menu design.
Taco Bronco marks the third restaurant from Micklethwait, second from Garcia and the first for Montesinos. Garcia is currently a partner at Micklethwait Market & Grocery and the Craft Meats pitmaster /manager.