Top local taco shop just opened in Cary, downtown Raleigh coming soon. What we know

A popular Raleigh taco shop has expanded to Cary, widening a Mexican restaurant empire in the Triangle.

Chido Taco, a taqueria from Joel Ibarra and Salvador Alvarez, opened last week in the Shoppes of Kildaire shopping center in Cary. This is the second Chido Taco location, following the original taqueria in 2019 in Raleigh’s McNeill Pointe, just off Wake Forest Road.

The new Cary Chido Taco opens in the former Tijuana Flats space next door to Trader Joe’s. Across the street is Totopos, the popular eight-year-old restaurant also owned by Ibarra and Alvarez.

“Cary is a big market for us, we have Totopos across the street, when this space came available it just made a lot of sense,” Alvarez said. “This is a very busy shopping center.”

Chido Taco opened in Raleigh as a lively counter service taqueria with a bar on the side. The menu is built on the classic taco fillings like carnitas and al pastor and lengua, and for a time had one of the very few vertical roasting spits in the Triangle. There are also tortas, burritos and more complicated taco options, like chile relleno and mezcal marinated grilled shrimp.

Chido specializes in doing a lot of little things right, like on the bar side mixing drinks with freshly squeezed fruit juices, ramping up the cocktails’ brightness and tartness as if kissed by sunshine.

Alvarez said the Cary location will serve the same menu, but that the space will be laid out differently. Because it’s smaller than the Raleigh location, there won’t be a bar area at the new Chido, but drinks will be mixed in the kitchen.

“We’ll serve the same margaritas and same everything,” Alvarez said. “The menu is exactly the same.”

More Chido Taco locations coming

A third Chido is in the works for Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh, with Alvaraz projecting a July opening. That location will include a bar and the same menu as the other Chidos.

When the brand first launched in 2019, Alvarez said the plan was to open more locations fairly quickly. A global pandemic got in the way of that, but he said things are back on track now.

“That was the hope (to build more locations),” Alvarez said. “It took longer than we thought for us to open the second one, but now we’re close on a third on. I think it’s good that we waited, the first one is much more established.”

Alvarez and Ibarra are together and separately behind some of the Triangle’s most popular Mexican restaurants, including Totopos and La Rancherita. In the last couple of years, Alvarez has also opened La Buena Vida in North Raleigh, bought Gringo A Gogo in downtown Raleigh, and with his wife Biridiana Frausto and her family, is expanding the acclaimed Fonda Lupita into Durham.

The new Chido Taco is located at 151 SE Cary Parkway in Cary.