10 New Mexico food trucks worth following

Food trucks have become dynamic culinary hot spots. These mobile kitchens are places where chefs experiment, home chefs up their game, and budding entrepreneurs can kick off a new business.

So how do you find them? They’re often parked at breweries, parks, parking lots, and community events. Check the trucks’ websites or social media profiles to keep up with their latest landing spots.

Here are 10 food trucks worth following in New Mexico. 

Chef Nathan Mayes spent years handcrafting tacos at Santa Fe’s upmarket Mexican restaurant Paloma. He left that eatery in November 2023 to launch Mañana Taco, a food trailer parked outside Little Bear Coffee and Wine Bar in Nob Hill Albuquerque.

Mayes says Mañana Taco is the type of place he liked to eat at in his hometown of Austin, Texas, considered one of America’s food truck capitals. He couldn’t find anything similar in New Mexico, so he and his wife, Cathryn, created it.

“I’m getting back to making casual food with good flavors and good ingredients,” Mayes says. “It’s not a health food taco spot, but it’s a wholesome food spot. These have bold, craveable flavors but feel good to eat.”

Superb breakfast tacos—served from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., even after lunch tacos become available—begin with great tortillas. Mayes makes the flour tortillas and purchases corn tortillas from La Mexicana Tortilla Co. in Duke City. Tortillas, Mayes says, are part of Mañana Taco’s identity.

Mayes tops the tortillas with bright, fresh ingredients like potatoes, organic eggs, and house-made barbacoa. Each taco comes with a choice of salsa—roja, verde, or habanero, which Mayes says is super hot but bursting with flavor.

Instagram: @mananataco

Sena found inspiration for the menu on a trip to Tucson, home to Sonoran hot dogs, which are topped with beans, onions, salsa, and tomatoes. The menu features 10 hot dogs, including the popular Dozer Dog, which is topped with ghost pepper mayo and the truck’s own “inferno sauce.”

“Because it’s so spicy, everyone wants to take the challenge,” Sena says. The asada fries, hand-cut fries topped with 24-hour-marinated meat cooked to order, are another bestseller.

The truck is permanently parked at 110 N. Solano, Las Cruces, where it has outdoor table seating.

Facebook: @lalossonorastyledogs

At two Santa Fe locations, diners can start their days with the popular Luis Mix breakfast burrito, which is loaded with chorizo, bacon, Polish sausage, eggs, potatoes, green chile, and cheese. The Mr. Polish dog, a kielbasa piled high with pinto beans, carnitas, Monterey Jack cheese, and crispy bacon, is a lunch favorite, as are the tacos with 10 meat options—try the al pastor and adobada.

Fusion fans line up for the quesabirria, which folds birria—a Mexican dish in which meat, such as beef, is slow-simmered with chile and other spices—and Oaxacan cheese into corn tortillas. It’s served alongside the birria broth for dipping.

Birria stirred into ramen is another customer favorite. Tacos may be the star at this breakfast and lunch spot, but those in the know also head here for fusion bowls, including keto-friendly options, protein shakes, and fruit smoothies.

Instagram: @fusion_tacosllc

What’s better than a doughnut? A warm, fresh-out-of-the-fryer doughnut, according to Craig McGregor, who serves his creations this way. McGregor and his wife, Michelle, opened their Santa Fe food truck in 2020 determined to outshine traditional doughnuts.

Customers attest that they’ve succeeded. The proof is in the line that trails across the parking lot at Old Santa Fe Trail and Paseo De Peralta, across the street from the New Mexico State Capitol.

It’s worth the wait. Signature flavors include cinnamon roll, a cinnamon-and sugar–covered doughnut with a vanilla drizzle; and s’mores, a chocolate-glazed doughnut with graham cracker crumbs finished with a toasted marshmallow and marshmallow drizzle. Customers can also create custom flavors. Craft Donuts & Coffee also operates a brick-and-mortar location on Santa Fe’s southside.

 Instagram: @craftdonuts_santafe

Many Duke City denizens have a Hawaiian connection, whether they were stationed in Hawai‘i as military service members or simply vacationed in the Islands and have fond memories of lū‘au meals.

James “Kimo” Strange taps into that affection with two food trucks and a brick-and-mortar restaurant devoted to Island dishes. Strange spent 20 years in the Aloha State. When his wife’s family brought him to New Mexico, he didn’t leave his favorite flavors behind.

The food truck features Hawaiian staples: kālua pork, slow-roasted pulled pork seasoned with Hawaiian salt; chicken katsu, deep-fried chicken pieces with a side of house-made dipping sauce; and huli huli chicken, turned chicken basted with a sticky sweet sauce. “The plate lunches we have are things people tasted in Hawai‘i,” Strange says. “They’re excited to find the same food here.”

Facebook: @KimosBBQ

In 2016, Megan Will hung up her Verizon call center headset to open With Love Waffles. The longtime baker used personal savings to launch her truck. She’s been going strong ever since, catering for the film industry and attending pop-ups.

“It was our way to get a foot in the door as a business owner,” Will says. She originally imagined baking cupcakes, but the truck’s limited space pointed her in a different direction: waffles made on compact griddles and topped as decadently as the small cakes would have been.

The top sellers among the truck’s eight sweet flavors are chocolate-covered strawberry and salted caramel chocolate chip. Will also introduced savory offerings, using irons like panini presses to churn out waffle-look-alike sandwiches with fillings such as turkey and green chile. 

Instagram: @withlovewaffles

“Tenemos luchar,” Ivan Saenz and his best friend, Otilio Reyes, told themselves in 2013 as they pursued their dream of starting a food truck. “We have to fight.” The mantra inspired the food truck’s name, which refers to masked Mexican wrestlers. “It took on a life of its own,” Saenz says. “Everything on the menu is named after a wrestler.”

The Blue Demon Burger—named after the late luchador Alejandro Muñoz Moreno—is topped with blue cheese. The Rock Burger—named after former WWE wrestler Dwayne Johnson—is piled high with pineapple. The Jake the Snake Tacos—named after former WWF wrestler Aurelian Smith Jr.—get a bit of a bite with carne asada and green chile.

Today, Saenz works with his wife, Sandra. Their truck is a constant at the biweekly Farmers & Crafts Market of Las Cruces. And on the first Thursday of the month, it serves a free “Lucha for Hope” meal for unhoused people at Las Cruces’ transitional-living facility Camp Hope.

“We’re lucky to have what we have, and my parents taught me to share what I can,” Saenz says. He lived up to that creed in summer 2024 when the food truck traveled to Ruidoso to feed first responders during the South Fork and Salt fires.

Facebook: @LuchadorFoodTruck

Medrano prepares her no-additive blends from scratch. Flavors such as mango jalapeño, mango chamoy (a salty, sweet, chile flavor), and lemon lavender are customer favorites.

“What’s kind of neat about the cart is that everyone’s happy. If I give someone a CT scan, that’s not the case,” she jokes.

Instagram: @loteriapaleteria

Since launching Tikka Spice food truck in 2019, Basit Gauba has grown his business into a restaurant empire with brick-and-mortar and food truck locations across Duke City. Gauba and his parents moved to the United States from Pakistan.

His first truck aimed to bring more Pakistani and halal options to Albuquerque. He started with dishes such as samosas and samosa chaat (potato-filled samosas topped with curried chickpeas, several chutneys, and crispy noodles), and expanded into curries.

Gauba focuses on the menu while his wife, Kanwal, serves as president and CEO of the growing restaurant empire but gets involved in the creative side as well. She has a knack for fusing the flavors of their heritage with Southwestern ones.

He’s earned raves for dishes such as chicken tikka tacos. In 2022, his Duke City Smash Burger won top honors at the annual Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown. It incorporates Pakistani seasonings like garlic, cumin, and ginger. “The seasoning is light,” Gauba says. “I want the chile flavor to come out and enhance the meat.”

His deft hand with seasoning also earned him a 2023 semifinalist spot in the James Beard Awards Best Chef: Southwest competition. “It’s pretty remarkable to be on the list. That was one of my goals, but I didn’t think it would be this quick.”

NOTE: Tikka Spice is temporarily closed. They are working on expanding their menu and creating new flavors.

Instagram: @tikka.spice

Ashley M. Biggers is a New Mexico–based writer and editor who is always searching for her next great meal, whether from a fine-dining restaurant or a local food truck.