"If you go to Tijuana, you have birria. You're going to find tacos," Max Carballo told Newsday this summer. "But the more real way to eat it is on the street corner in a bowl, which is soupy and meaty. And then you have tortillas. You dunk the tortillas in the soup."
You can only get that bowl at his new Dix Hills shop from Friday through Sunday. Taquero Mucho opened its first brick-and-mortar location in August at 15 E. Deer Park Rd., in the storefront that used to hold Red Cajun and Grill. Some of the dishes that make the shop worth a trip are served only on certain days. On a Tuesday you'll find a good taco counter. On a Sunday it's a different meal, so the day you go decides what you can order.
The menu has a weekly schedule
The shop is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, and closed Mondays. Newsday's August review, by Andi Berlin, lists which dishes are tied to which days, and the schedule looks like this:
| Day | What's available | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Closed | Plan around it |
| Tuesday to Thursday | The regular menu, including beef birria tacos, which are served daily | Other menu items include crispy tacos, al pastor, burritos and papas locas |
| Friday and Saturday | Everyday menu plus consommé de beef birria | The soup is served with tortillas on the side for dunking |
| Sunday | Everyday menu, consommé de beef birria and pozole | The only day all three are on the menu |
Sunday is the only day you can get pozole, birria consommé and the full regular menu in one visit. Beef birria tacos are on the menu every day. Carballo seems proudest of the consommé, according to Newsday, and he serves it only on weekends.
A food truck with very little money behind it
The schedule makes more sense once you know where the business started. Three years ago, Carballo had a few hundred dollars in savings. He bought a food truck and parked it on Fifth Avenue in Bay Shore, near Great South Bay Brewery. "I opened the truck with the few dollars I had tucked under my pillow and hoped it would be something that helped pay the bills," he told Greater Long Island in late August.
The trucks built the reputation that came with him to Deer Park Road. Taquero Mucho is on Newsday's list of top Long Island tacos for its California-style crispy tacos and its al pastor, both served on house-made corn tortillas. Carballo is a Los Angeles native who grew up in South Central LA, and he still runs trucks in Bay Shore and Brentwood. He also added a weekend hot dog cart, Mama Rosita, at his original Bay Shore spot. It serves bacon-wrapped Cali dogs, also called danger dogs, the kind he ate from street vendors after school in California.
According to Greater Long Island, the Dix Hills menu is "largely the same as the food truck's," and he says everything is made fresh each morning. So if you already have a favorite order from the Bay Shore truck, you'll most likely find it here.
What the bigger kitchen added
The storefront has a bigger kitchen than the truck, and the dishes that are new to the menu are the ones that need the extra space. Greater Long Island reports that Carballo added lobster tails and short ribs. Newsday's list of new items includes the Sunday pozole, a fried fish Veracruzana, and a burrito bowl with chicken, shrimp and lobster a la diabla for $34.
At $34, that bowl costs about twice as much as the shop's carne asada fries. It's the special-occasion dish on a menu that's otherwise built for everyday meals. Even so, when people ask Carballo what to order, he doesn't point them to the lobster.
"I love our burritos. Doesn't matter if it's chicken, steak, pastor, chorizo. That's what I tell everyone who asks me for my opinion."
The kitchen added the new dishes, but the owner still recommends the food the truck has always made.
The weekday order
On Tuesday through Thursday, here's what to order.
Papas locas, $16.15. These are carne asada french fries. Newsday called them the tastiest it had found and some of the crispiest fries around, even under a heavy layer of creamy, spicy cheeses and sauces. The name can be confusing, because a papa loca is often a loaded Mexican baked potato. At Taquero Mucho, papas locas means fries. Newsday also points out that carne asada fries are a staple of 24-hour burrito shops in San Diego.
Crispy tacos and al pastor. These are the dishes that put the truck on Newsday's best-taco list, and Newsday doesn't tie either one to a particular day.
A burrito, any filling. The owner recommends it.
Beef birria tacos. If you can't come on a weekend, these are the daily way to try the birria.
The dining room is very casual. Newsday notes that the wooden tables were left behind by the restaurant that used to be in the space, and it compared the feel to a late-night spot in the Southwest.
The cold-weather special coming next
Taquero Mucho also runs seasonal specials at both Bay Shore and Dix Hills. In winter, Carballo makes a birria cup o' noodles. He cooks the noodles in broth instead of water and loads them with meat, onions and jalapeños. He hasn't announced a start date. The Dix Hills shop opened in August, so this will be its first cold season, and the noodles will be its first winter special. The shop's Instagram, @taquero.mucho5, is the place to watch for when they show up.
Adding the noodles to the weekend consommé and the Sunday pozole, much of what this kitchen is proudest of is soup. It opened at the end of summer, so most of that is still ahead.
Building a Sunday around it
If you want the full menu, plan on a Sunday. A few other new or recently profiled Dix Hills spots fit into the same afternoon.
- Lunch at Taquero Mucho, 15 E. Deer Park Rd. Order the pozole and the consommé de beef birria, since both are on the Sunday menu. The shop opens at 11 a.m.
- Dessert at Ralph's Famous Italian Ices and Ice Cream, 1740 E. Jericho Turnpike. Ralph's moved this summer to Dix Hills Commons, across the street from its old location. Owner Nanci Lotvin told Newsday, "There's not one thing in the store that's not brand new." The new shop has a popcorn cart and a candy wall stocked with gummy worms, nonpareils and Swedish candy. Water and creme ices range from $4.50 for a kiddie size to $6.50 for a large, and there are 12 signature sundaes. Sugar-free flavors include Java chip and cappuccino. As of Newsday's August 24 update, Sunday hours ran until 10:30 p.m. Those were summer hours, so check Ralph's Dix Hills location page before you go this fall.
- Groceries for the week at Pino's Italian Food Market, 683 Old Country Road. The Dix Hills store opened in late March 2025, Patch reported. The family behind it has been in business much longer. A News 12 profile from August 17, 2026 traces the business to 1985, when Paul Barbieri's father started it.
Carballo told Greater Long Island that some customers have taken one bite and told him, "Thank you. We needed you here. We needed a place like this." Most of that early praise came from summer customers. The weekend soups and the coming winter noodles are a big part of what the kitchen makes, and they'll get their first fall and winter run at the new shop.
Here at Robyn Schatz, we keep up with what opens along Deer Park Road and Jericho Turnpike because those places are part of everyday life for our Dix Hills neighbors. If you've found a new spot worth a Sunday drive, let us know, and we'll be glad to pass along what we hear.
