On April 17, the Mad Taco opened a food truck behind the seasonal Gardener’s Supply outpost at 2545 Shelburne Road. The local Mexican biz takes over for Morgan Brook Farm, which operated the food truck on the site of the torn-down Sirloin Saloon in 2023 and 2024.
The truck serves a smaller menu than the Mad Taco restaurants in Waitsfield, Montpelier, Middlebury and Essex, owner Joey Nagy said, and aims to have orders ready in five minutes or less.
To start, customers can choose from tacos, burritos and quesadillas with fillings such as beef, carnitas, smoked chicken, smoked pork and roasted yam. The menu will rotate all summer, with regular specials and new menu concepts.
“We’re going to use the truck as a test kitchen,” Nagy said. “It’s our Shelburne taco incubator.”
The Mad Taco had a food truck on the road in the past, but this one will remain stationary and open as long as weather allows, likely through the end of October.
It will “test the market” for a potential brick-and-mortar restaurant along the busy Route 7 corridor in the Shelburne area, Nagy said. Sharing the outdoor space with Gardener’s Supply’s Shelburne nursery — which opened last spring, selling plants and a small selection of garden tools — is “a nice symbiotic relationship,” he said.
The Mad Taco truck is open Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with picnic table seating. The truck has no phone, but online ordering is available.
Speaking of which, Montpelier customers can now order their tacos online and get them delivered to nearby Charlie-O’s World Famous, Nagy said. Mad Taco also stocks the dive bar with pre-rolled late-night burritos.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2025.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
