What’s the first thing you should order at a taqueria you’ve never been to before? At Lone Star Taqueria on Redwood Road, the answer is easy: get the barbacoa. One taco — soft corn tortilla, slow-cooked beef, diced onion, cilantro, a hit of salsa verde — tells you everything you need to know about whether a place takes this stuff seriously. At Lone Star, it does.
I came here years ago on a tip from a coworker who grew up eating at places like this back in Texas. She said the barbacoa reminded her of what her grandmother made for Sunday breakfast after church — beef cheeks cooked for hours until they collapse, fatty and deeply savory in a way that doesn’t need embellishment. That’s a high bar. It clears it.
The restaurant sits in a small strip mall on Redwood Road, not far from the 201 freeway interchange. It’s a no-frills room: counter service, laminate tables, a few booths along one wall. You order at the front, grab your own chips and salsa from the setup near the door, and wait about five minutes for your food. On weekends, expect a line — not a long one, but enough that arriving before noon is smart if you’re hungry and impatient.
The menu is focused. Tacos run about $3 to $4 each, and two or three makes a solid lunch. Beyond barbacoa, the carnitas are crisp-edged and tender inside, and the al pastor has a proper char from the grill, with enough pineapple sweetness to balance the dried chile marinade. If you want something more filling, the burritos are generously built — I usually split one with a friend and add a taco on the side. Tortas and quesadillas round out the menu, and the horchata is made in-house, not from a powder mix, which you’ll notice immediately.
The salsas are worth paying attention to. The green is bright and a little tangy, the red is smoky with just enough heat to make itself known. There’s usually a third option at the salsa station — sometimes a chunky habanero, sometimes a roasted tomatillo variation — and it changes often enough that regulars check before loading up.
Lunch is the peak experience here. The kitchen is clearly cooking for the crowd, and everything comes out fast and hot. Dinner works too, but weekday evenings are quieter and the tortillas, which are made fresh earlier in the day, have sometimes been sitting a bit longer by then. Weekend morning is a local ritual — if you show up around 10 a.m. on a Saturday, you’ll find families ordering breakfast tacos with egg, potato, and chorizo, which are their own thing worth trying separately from the evening menu.
Pricing is straightforward and honest. You can eat extremely well here for under $12, which puts it in a category that’s getting harder to find. Cash is accepted and appreciated, though they take cards without complaint.
Lone Star Taqueria isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is: a taqueria that cooks traditional regional Mexican food with care and consistency. That’s exactly why it’s worth going out of your way for.
