District Taco has brought Mexico to an old DC building. What started out as a food truck with recipes the owner grew up making in the Yucatan became popular enough to warrant a bricks and mortar location with longer hours and more staff to serve the hoards. CORE architects were on this project, like so many other restaurants around here, and in this case their task was to create a place that you would see on the streets of Mexico. "Rather than interpret the food truck literally," says Allison Cooke of CORE, "we decided to bring in vibrant colors and distressed finishes that you would find where Osiris [the owner] is from."
The corrugated metal roof over the food prep area is another touch, but what takes it over the Mexican finish line are the bottle caps used to cover the nuts and bolts that hold the pieces together. "In the Yucatan," said co-owner Osiris in a statement, "we often use bottle caps instead of washers on exposed bolts so we do that. In the bathroom, there are Mexican newspapers on the walls." In this case the bottle caps are purely decorative since they might not hold up to building code standards, but they add another distinctive layer to the decor. They also offer up Spanish lessons by giving out language cards instead of ticket numbers after you've placed your order. You can't do that with a food truck.
· District Taco [OfficialSite]
· All prior CORE coverage [CDC]