Soul Taco ranked best Taco spot in Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - There’s a newly-ranked number 1 taco restaurant in Virginia, and it just happened to be in RVA.

Soul Taco in Jackson Ward was recently named the best place for tacos in the state by msn.com.

“It’s the best one I’ve ever had for sure,” said first time visitor, Bob Nickel.

“I didn’t know that [they were ranked #1] but I’m not surprised because the food is that good," said said customer, Will Hussar.

“Its surreal, it feels good definitely feels good but it wasn’t something I was expecting,” said Owner of Soul Taco, Trey Owens.

Less than year ago, Soul Taco opened its doors in Nov. 2018 and now its receiving its first piece of the success pie.

“Of course when you first open a restaurant you don’t expect so many things to happen within your first year," said Owens. “It’s been overwhelming but it’s been great."

MSN relied on Yelp to rank the top 5 best taco places in Richmond and from there, they used overall reviews to narrow things down and determine the best in the state.

“It’s really good to see my community supporting me," said Owens.

Soul taco isn’t your average taco restaurant, its a mixture of Latino and southern soul food tacos.

“We have things like hushpuppy nachos which is a southern thing and then nachos with pico de gallo with guacamole on it and we have ox tail taco," said Owens.

“I think it’s amazing. the combinations they put into each taco I’ve never had anywhere else,” said Nickel.

Things are looking up now for Owner Trey Owens, but .just a few years ago things were a different story.

“I didn’t have a job, i didn’t have a car, I barely had anything,” said Owens.

Trey had lost his job at the bank and was forced to move to figure things out.

“Being there in the projects and the way people looked at you…..if you told them you lived in Creighton, you know people would be like umm..,” said Owens.

Trey would work a number of odd jobs but nothing seemed to stick.

“Throughout it all I just wanted to make sure that anything that I did was representative of who I wanted people to see me as,” said Owens.

Years later faith would paid off for Owens in the form of tacos.

“Don’t let your situation become you,” said Owens.

Now he hopes people from Creighton and anyone looking to improve their situation sees a little bit of themselves in this product of their community.

“It doesn’t matter how the people around you view you, it doesn’t matter none of those thing matter. It all matters what you think of yourself,” said Owens.

All food prices are $5 and below so that anybody in the neighborhood would be able to stop in and get something to eat.”

“I don’t want to price anybody out or make them feel unwelcome here because that was something that I did deal with coming from Creighton,” said Owens.

Soul Taco is located at 321 N 2nd St, Richmond, VA 23219.

A second location will be opening in Aug. 2019 at 1215 E. Main St. Richmond, VA.

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