Rancho Bravo Update

We had the pleasure of chatting with Freddy Rivas this morning, owner of Seattle’s finest taco empire (we assume you’ll allow us that one truck in Wallingford and a converted KFC on Capitol Hill count as an empire, when the tacos are that good), Rancho Bravo (211 NE 45th St).

Those of you who tried a visit yesterday (and who didn’t see our tweet) may be wondering why it was closed. Never fear, it’s back in action and better than ever (or at least as good as it was before their fire): they were just moving the new, larger truck back into place.

We took advantage of having Senor Rivas on the phone to ask a few questions, as well: most important, what’s happening with the old Winchell’s?

“I just haven’t decided,” he told us. “I’m going back and forth between options. One idea is to maybe have a Mexican theme store there. There isn’t one anywhere around. But we really want something that going to be interesting and fun, a good fit for the neighborhood. Whatever goes in there probably won’t be food service, because we od use the building for storage and such for the truck. Not to say we would rule it out, if we came across something I was totally wild about, but that’s what we’re thinking for now.”

Why not just move the truck operation inside, the way they have with Capitol Hill location?

“The indoors business just can’t handle the same capacity as outside. That said, whatever goes in there has to go well with the truck. It’s going to be a requirement that people getting food  have a space to go inside.”

We knew that our friend, the fabulous landscaper Briar Bates, was working on the outdoor area of the Capitol Hill location (expect to see patio seating and other improvements there in the coming months), so we wondered whether similar changes were afoot in Wallingford.

“Yes, the first thing we need to do is to put up a more permanent, higher quality outdoor shelter,” Rivas said. “Once that’s taken care of, we’d like to improve the overall look of the place: maybe add some lampposts and better outdoor lighting, just create a better looking friendlier space to be in.”

Finally, we dropped our dream on him: with the new liquor store going in a block away, perhaps they could start serving beer and virgin “add your own tequila” margaritas?

Sadly, he felt that the liquor control board might not take quite the shine to the idea that we did. Alas, we’ll just have to keep washing down our burritos with Jarrito’s.