Start the Presses: One Napa taco truck, one famous taco, five decades strong

Dan Evans

Dan Evans

Eddie Chavez, wearing a white shirt and a black cap, opened up the service door of his taco truck to chat. It was a few moments before the dinner rush, so he had a minute, if only a minute.

The truck that Thursday afternoon stood where it usually does: the A1 Food Store parking lot at Coombs and Ash streets. Tacos Chavez has worked that corner for more than a decade, open Monday through Saturday. But the business has been selling tacos de cabeza al vapor since the Nixon administration. It's gotta be Napa County's oldest taco truck - and probably the longest continuously running one in the North Bay.

It's there when it gets dark early, when it's rainy, when those hot summer nights make it hard to sleep, and when the days are pretty much perfect.

Pablo Chavez, Eddie's dad, started selling tacos in 1972 out of a converted milk truck. Eddie, 44, took over a couple of decades back when they got the current vehicle - which he still refers to as "the new one." Napa officials apparently had enough of the earlier version, saying the cobbled-together dairy deliverer didn't quite meet health standards.

"I've been doing this for 20 years," he said, pausing. "Well, I've been paid to do this for 20 years. My dad had me working for him a lot longer than that."

His dad gave babies a free taco. It's a tradition Eddie, born in St. Helena, still keeps.

"I get customers that come by and say they were that baby," he said, smiling and shaking his head slightly.

I wondered if he was thinking, like I was, about where the time goes. Twenty years ago can feel like yesterday. But the man I was in 2006 feels less like me than a relative - maybe a cousin. Perhaps that's true for all of us.

One thing, though, hasn't changed. The menu. It's straightforward. I mean, really straightforward. So much so that the people at In-N-Out might say "Whoa, Eddie, let's get some variety in here."

They sell one kind of taco: steamed beef head, which is mostly cheekmeat. Your choices are limited to the type of salsa you want (mild, medium, hot, or tear-your-face-off), whether you want chopped onions and cilantro, and whether you want a single or double tortilla to wrap the deliciousness in. The double tortilla option has only been around since Eddie has been in charge; Pablo didn't think it necessary.

The business began in the aftermath of a debilitating injury, survived over the decades due to hard work, and thrived due to its high-quality food. Pablo Chavez, now 84, used to work as a garbage collector in Solano County until he hurt his back.

"They had to throw the cans in the truck back in those days," said Eddie. "They put a metal plate in his back, and he had to stop work."

As for why Pablo chose cabeza tacos - and only cabeza tacos - Eddie said he isn't entirely sure. His family is from Michoacan, which is more known for carnitas.

"Was it just his favorite?" I asked.

"Well, in a way," said Eddie. "It used to be a not expensive cut of meat. Now it costs as much as steak!"

You might think that he might get a bit tired of the tacos, but Eddie claims to eat them pretty much daily. He laughed as he showed me an Instagram video of him making a plate for himself - drowning it in red salsa.

"I mean, it's pretty much the same thing every time I make these videos," he said. "But people really seem to love them."

He has two sons, one 16 and the other 20. He said he doesn't foresee, or even want them to take over the truck as he did from his own father.

"Maybe they could open up a restaurant; that would be good," he said. "But it's up to them."

If family is one future, business is another. The more immediate plans are to get prepared for BottleRock. He said Tacos Chavez was at the last two iterations of La Onda, but since that's not happening this year, he's moving things to the longer-running festival.

Things will pretty much be the same, though he said he was concerned the wider audience might shy away from cabeza tacos, not the most common order for non-Latinos. As a result, he's going to add chicken tacos to the menu as well as "totopos," which is (more or less) like nachos.

As much as Napa changes, there is comfort in places like Tacos Chavez. They connect us to the past while still feeding the present. And maybe, just maybe, the grandchildren, or the great-grandchildren, of those first customers will get a chance to claim their own free taco.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 6:04 PM.