Mackensy Lunsford

mlunsford@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - The Asheville Pizza and Brewing partners have taken over two North Asheville buildings. In one, at 707 Merrimon Ave., Asheville Pizza will add a kitchen to help expand the restaurant's delivery radius and offerings while potentially cutting delivery times in half.

The other, at 705 Merrimon Ave., will house an altogether new concept, one that Asheville Pizza owner Mike Rangel said represents his other love besides pizza: Mexican food.

The venture, Asheville Tacos and Taps, will take over the Merrimon Avenue drive-thru recently vacated by Brat Burger. Before that, it was a vegan drive-thru, and before that it was home to Backyard Burger.

Rangel and company will transform the drive-thru into a place to grab tacos and refill growlers from 18 taps, half of which will be Asheville Brewing Company beer.

"We'll have Wicked Weed, Hi-Wire, whatever’s tasty, new and fresh, along with some of ours," he said.

Rangel and his partners are looking to capitalize on the growing trend of Mexican food.

"Last year, Mexican food actually surpassed pizza as the most popular food," he explained. "Now there's more Mexican food than pizza, so we obviously feel that the trend is moving in that direction."

Rangel, whose trips to Austin, Texas, always include a taco stop or several, gushed over an upcoming seasonal taco featuring lightly battered and fried avocado slices.

“I crave it," Rangel said. "We’re having our next taco meeting on Wednesday, and I can’t wait. It’s like a delicious piece of steak. Filling, rich, out of sight.”

Asheville Tacos and Taps' menu allows for customization, but a la carte items include basics like hard-shell ground beef tacos, as well as more gourmet offerings like fish tacos with grilled mahi mahi. Vegetarians will be well-represented, and a kids' menu will also be available.

Tacos will include barbecued pork, tequila-lime chicken and blackened shrimp. Salsa and queso will be made in-house. Rangel said he'll source locally wherever possible. Still, he intends to keep prices affordable — $3-$3.50 per taco, he said.

"We, as a company, have always tried to be on the affordable side and not a special occasion type of place."

The restaurant is slated to open in July, though Rangel said he and his partners aren't adhering to any strict deadlines. They want to perfect the concept before they throw open the drive-thru window.

"With this concept, we’re going with all brand-new procedures," he said. That requires weeks of training and menu refinement. And once the menu is refined, it will be refined some more to make sure it's built for speed. A major focus is making sure customers wait no more than 4.5 minutes from order to window.

Regardless, Rangel said he doesn't want this to be a steam-table eatery. He will employ a cook to grill fish and other items to order.

Eventually, he hopes to offer taco delivery from all of his eateries. Further down the road, he hopes the restaurant will make its own house tortillas in the expanded kitchen building at 707 Merrimon Ave.

Once that happens, Asheville Tacos and Taps will join Mamacitas Taco Temple in the not-so-simple endeavor of turning out scratch-made tortillas. Taco Billy also makes taco shells out of plantains.

But Rangel knows he's not reinventing the wheel; he acknowledged the area taquerias that have come before his.

"We don’t think we’re the saviors of taco world," he said.

They are, however, bringers of an entirely new concept in the area: a drive-thru for both dinner and drinks (to be consumed once the car is safely in park, of course).

"You don’t even have to leave your car to get your beer," Rangel said. "Only in Asheville."

Asheville Tacos and taps will open in July at 705 Merrimon Ave. The restaurant will include a small patio for dine-in customers.

New eatery, Taco Billy, joins Asheville’s taco tapestry

Mamacita's Taco Temple opens Tuesday