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tacqueria real santa fe in sunnyside

pgunn Jun 9, 2013 06:30 PM

so, i always wanted to like this place, but the food/service/prices were too uneven... after being closed for like a year or so, it is now reopened as a storefront tacqueria... menu could not be more simple... 5 types of tacos, 3 for 5 bucks... 3 outdoor stools = seating... the food is decent and i am curious if they will make a run at it...

  1. Up With Olives Jun 13, 2013 07:25 AM

    This is good news; I did like the Real Santa Fe restaurant and was sorry to see them close. I have not found a neighborhood replacement for it. Haven't been back to Azteca since they changed the name and place slightly -- is it the same, I wonder?

    1. h
      Humbucker Jun 9, 2013 08:29 PM

      3 for $5?!?! That's the cheapest I've seem tacos anywhere. I live pretty much around the corner so I'll definitely check it out. I

      Is it just tacos, or do they have tortas, burritos, etc.?

      9 Replies
      1. re: Humbucker
        pgunn Jun 9, 2013 10:36 PM

        nothing but tacos

        1. re: Humbucker
          Pookipichu Jun 10, 2013 07:38 AM

          I appreciate reasonably priced food, but I'm finding more and more that people are cutting too many corners in quality to lower the prices of their food.

          1. re: Pookipichu
            tex.s.toast Jun 10, 2013 11:42 AM

            best tacos of my life costs $1/per at a truck in salinas - i dont think one needs to cut corners to produce great cheap tacos.

            1. re: tex.s.toast
              Pookipichu Jun 10, 2013 12:37 PM

              Well there's more than one way to cut costs, having less overhead or paying staff less, but I'm talking about the worrying trend of downward price pressures causing people to cut corners by adulterating products or using adulterated products or lower quality products. The extreme of this can be seen in China, but it's very much here in the US as well.

              1. re: Pookipichu
                tex.s.toast Jun 10, 2013 01:26 PM

                Fair enough. I did get a kick out of the story recently about the widespread replacement of frozen calamari rings with pig bung . . . mostly because thats what was in those delicious delicious 1 dollar tacos (not calamari, i mean).

                1. re: tex.s.toast
                  Pookipichu Jun 10, 2013 02:12 PM

                  lol, ummm that's actually one of the articles that has made me sweat recently. As well as the fish switcheroo even at decent seafood restaurants, TGIF switching liquor, pink slime, etc... And if there's anything I'm sure of, food scandals are like icebergs, what we see is only 85% of what is going on.

                  Gas/petroleum is way up, producer costs are way up, supermarkets are charging more for meat and vegetables yet fastfood and restaurant prices have been much more stable. Something in the soup is not kosher.

                  1. re: Pookipichu
                    debinqueens Jun 10, 2013 02:20 PM

                    i really believe the 'switcheroo' stuff has always gone on, in high end restaurants and low. if we're talking about triggering food allergies or messing with things in a way that might subvert religious/moral beliefs, i have an issue, but honestly, if someone serves me a cheaper fish than the one on the menu and it still tastes good, i'll live with it.

                    1. re: Pookipichu
                      tex.s.toast Jun 10, 2013 02:30 PM

                      I think that some scamming may occur but the real reason restaurant prices havent risen with the other costs you list is because customers are more sensitive to it. I know first hand that restaurateurs are frequently keeping prices level at the expense of (already minimal) profits - because they just cant raise prices often enough or high enough to maintain the margins they used to.

                      as a restaurant owner/chef, your prices fluctuate every time you order ingredients, but unless you do a daily-changing menu, that just means so do your profit margins. from time to time this may mean lower prices/higher profits, but the trend over time is clearly the opposite. what can you do? incrementally vary menu prices? more reasonable options would be to play with portions ever so slightly, but even this doesnt work for some foods. this is the reason ive basically stopped eating 3/3.5 dollar oysters (nearly everywhere not running a special), or 40 dollar slabs of ribs (im looking at you fletchers).

                      frankly, this is probably a non-trivial contributor to restaurant failure also - owners who are afraid of losing business by raising prices who instead try to tough it out on less and less profitable operations and inevitably give up the ghost . . . to be replaced by places with higher prices or lower costs.

                  2. re: Pookipichu
                    Humbucker Jun 10, 2013 04:20 PM

                    The thing is, this new taco stand is basically a counter. The old place was an actual restaurant, but the new operation is nothing more than an open air counter where the old storefront used to be (the rest of the space that the restaurant occupied is blocked off behind the stand). They don't even have a door. So heating, maintenance costs, etc. must be super low, like a food cart, except unlike a food cart, they don't have to deal with transportation costs. Rent must be pretty low, too, because they can rent out the remaining space of the unit to someone else.

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