Quick Take
Taqueria Los Pericos, a popular 17-year-old taqueria on Water Street in downtown Santa Cruz, opened a new location in Aptos this week, bringing its bold, traditional flavors to the Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center. It joins a half-dozen other North County food businesses that have opened additional locations in Mid-County.
This month, Taqueria Los Pericos, one of Santa Cruz’s most popular taquerias, opened a second location in Aptos, a region of the county with few Mexican restaurants.
Owner Eleazar Zambrano and his business partner and cook, Jose Ruiz, opened the original Santa Cruz location on Water Street 17 years ago. Their Mid-County customers who frequent the downtown location have asked them for years to open a location in Aptos, says Zambrano. “They like our downtown location, but they wanted a location closer to where they live,” he says. (Zambrano’s wife owns the Taqueria Los Pericos in Corralitos.)
It took almost a year and a half to open the new taqueria in the Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center due to long waits for permits and extensive construction. “Everything inside is new,” says Zambrano. In addition to the dining room and kitchen, there is a small bar that isn’t open yet where they plan to serve beer and wine, and hope to eventually obtain a liquor license to serve margaritas and other cocktails.
Ruiz is originally from Jalisco, Mexico, and prepares everything authentically in the “old style,” using traditional methods, says Zambrano, with bold, layered flavors. The Santa Cruz location earned fans for its homemade salsas, generous portions and rich meat options. It regularly boasts a line that trails around the building, and during a midweek lunch hour, so did the new Aptos location. It offers the same menu of Mexican classics and house specialties, including burritos, fish tacos, tacos, quesadillas and chile rellenos.
Over the years, I’ve bounced around the menu and been happy every time, but I always come back to the Pericos taco ($4.59), lined with griddled cheese and loaded with your choice of meat – I usually opt for tender lengua (beef tongue, an additional $1.50) and charred-edged pastor – and topped with green salsa, chopped white onion and thick slices of avocado. It’s always a miracle that the tortilla can support the weight without ripping, but it never lets me down. Eating it requires some finesse, and plenty of warm chips from the salsa bar to scoop up any extra filling.
Taqueria Los Pericos joins several other Santa Cruz-based restaurants that have opened additional locations in the Aptos area, including Companion Bakeshop, The Penny Ice Creamery, Cat & Cloud Coffee and Venus Spirits Cocktails & Kitchen, as well as Davenport-based Whale City Bakery.
The new Aptos location is aiming to offer a similar customer experience to its original location, with quick service, low prices and complimentary warm chips and fresh salsas. “I want to make people happy,” says Zambrano. “That’s why we put the chips and salsa bar for free. We don’t want to raise our prices too much because we want people to eat and be happy.”
36 Rancho Del Mar, Aptos; taquerialospericos.com.
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