Smoking Gringos to head East for Day of the Dead festival

After only being open for three months, a small taqueria in Blacktown has become a viral sensation selling over 3000 tacos a week and will now headline the Day of the Dead Festival.

Smoking Gringos owner Richard Borg with a Quesa Taco, celebrating Day of the Dead. Picture: Richard Dobson

After only being open for three months, a small taqueria in Blacktown has become a viral sensation selling over 3000 tacos a week and will now headline the Day of the Dead Festival.

Smoking Gringos is the brainchild of former fine-dining chef Richard Borg, who has worked at Momofuku Seiobo and the Park Hyatt, and his partner Jade Jackson.

Borg has been working away for years at his birria taco recipe and after having locations at Kingswood and Newtown pub Websters, decided to open a restaurant in Blacktown.

Within two weeks of opening, Smoking Gringos had gone viral on TikTok with 200,000 views.

Jeremy Navarro and Shop owner Richard Borg at Smoking Gringos in Blacktown, celebrating Day of the Dead. Picture: Richard Dobson

As the name suggests, Borg and his team first smokes their cuts of meat before stewing them for six hours and cooking them in beef fat and dipping them in their signature, thick and dense consume.

“It’s been really quick. We didn’t expect it to take off that fast. Obviously to start we had faith in ourselves but we didn’t expect it to blow up like it did,” Jackson said.

“We knew we had the potential to do it, but whether we thought that would happen in a month. We didn’t know whether we had picked the right spot at all?,” he said, referencing the tendencies for many restaurants to open in the “safe zones” in and round the CBD.

“But the West are hungry too!”

The Quesa Tacos at Smoking Gringos. Picture: Richard Dobson

Their success has led to Smoking Gringos being named as one of the headline venues, alongside established Mexican restaurants like Bondi’s Carbon, at the Day of the Dead Festival at Entertainment Quarter on November 4 and 5.

The two-day fiesta is dedicated to Mexico’s traditional holiday Dia de los Muertos and will host Latin American bands, food stalls, mariachi bands and lucha libre wrestling.

Jackson said being part of the festival allows even more Sydneysiders to try their viral tacos, which they then hope to take on the road with a Smoking Gringos food truck.

It comes as Borg’s other cult like hospitality venture Burger Head closed the doors to it’s remaining two stores in Penrith and Botany on Sunday.

The burger business launched in January of 2017, the chain had four restaurants across Sydney but came under financial strain following its rapid expansion post-Covid.

Like Smoking Gringos, the plan is for Burger Head to have a presence on the food truck scene.