This year marks the 15th anniversary of District Taco’s flagship storefront on Langston Boulevard in Arlington. It’s been a wild ride for co-founder Osiris Hoil.
A native of Tekax de Álvaro Obregón, in southern Yucatán, Mexico, Hoil worked a few hospitality jobs in Denver before settling down in Arlington’s Yorktown neighborhood in the early aughts. That’s where he met his friend and future business partner, Marc Wallace, and hatched an idea for a food truck. (This, after losing his job in construction during the Great Recession.)
In 2009, the duo applied for a mobile vending license, scraped together $20,000 to buy their first rig, and began slinging carne asada and chicken tacos in Rosslyn, sharing the sidewalk with a gyro truck.
But the stiffest competition came from the Chipotle across the street (still there) and the Baja Fresh on the opposite corner (RIP). During those first few months, Hoil remembers grinding all day to rake in maybe $200. “Barely enough to buy another batch of ingredients,” he says.
In a move that proved a game changer, he welded an external grill to his cart so passersby could see and smell the tantalizing meats sizzling over glowing coals. The frenzy that followed led to the upstart’s first brick-and-mortar location. Today, District Taco has 20 eateries in D.C. and six states, with more in the pipeline.
Adjustments have been part of the journey, Hoil says. They’ve cut underperformers (adios, grilled shrimp!) and jumped on a few misguided bandwagons (fried chicken), only to return to the basics, with a steady focus on “freshness, speed and customer service.”
Though Hoil is partial to south-of-the-border delicacies like beef tongue tacos and tripe soup, he’s come to realize his customers aren’t. Organ meats have their place, he says—just not at District Taco.
At press time, he was finalizing a menu of botanas (Mexican bar snacks) for D.C.’s first District Taco Mezcaleria. Tucked inside the existing 4,500-square-foot District Taco in Dupont Circle, the bar will pair artisanal mezcals from small-batch producers with a menu of shareable bites.
Hoil hopes the spin-off venture will serve as a blueprint for future projects in airports and mixed-use buildings.
“Taco Bell has a cantina,” he points out, citing the need to diversify his own hospitality portfolio. He’s also developing a handful of express-themed carry-out locations with automated ordering.
But he’s never forgotten how it all started. Hoil has held onto the original taco cart, with hopes that it will one day adorn the entryway of a District Taco HQ. “It’ll be the first thing you see,” he says. “I know we’ve done something special. The sky’s the limit.”
