Behind the food truck: Valentina's Tex Mex BBQ

Posted on 11/26/2019 by Tammie Nolte, Big Fat Writer

FoodTruckBooking is going behind the food trucks to peek at how it’s done. First up, is Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ. Valentina’s is an Austin, Texas favorite and on the lists of Texas Monthly Top 50 Best BBQ Joints and Top 15 Tex Mex Bites.

THE SET UP

During a busy Sunday lunch rush, Alfonso Flores invited me to have a look at the whole set up and a tour behind the scenes…trailers. Alfonso is on BBQ pit crew rotation and usually has the shift from 3am to 12pm.

Alfonso has been part of the Valentina’s family since the start in 2013 when they had one trailer in downtown Austin. Valentina’s calls their customers their family, but Alfonso is a blood-related cousin of owners Modesty and Miguel Vidal who are making Tex Mex BBQ famous.

Valentina’s has been on my favorite list because of their rise in the food truck capitol, branding and expansion from one BBQ pit and food trailer to a brick & mortar location with 6 trailers. How did they do that?
VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH ALFONSO

"Catering is what kept us in business the first couple of years. Without it, I think we would have been struggling."
-Alfonso Flores, OG Pit Crew from Valentina's Tex Mex Food Truck

How Food Truck Booking Works
THE FOOD

Of course, everyone always talks about the food. The BBQ, the Texas Mesquite wood cooked beef brisket, the genius combination of adding BBQ brisket to a homemade soft tortilla taco. The cook pride and all the passion and doing it the hard, long, slow way has elevated Valentina’s. Folks want to travel far and wide to stand in line for their food, come rain or hot, hot shine.
THE BUZZ

The buzz about the food also brought the Texas BBQ King & arguably the BBQ King of the World to check them out. Chef Aaron Franklin brought himself and camera to Valentina’s and posted his video on the Food & Wine YouTube. The video attention and a visit from Texas Monthly BBQ Editor Daniel Vaughn also added some more wood to the pits.

For food trucks with no fixed spot, having the best BBQ and the best sandwich or the tastiest original taco is sometimes not enough. You need buzz and talk-worthy eats. People need to know how to find you. Customers need to experience and explain your food. Talk about it to their friends. Is your food so good that people will convince their friends and colleagues to go for a visit? Aaron Franklin? Daniel Vaughn? Valentina’s gets a MasterClass star.
THE SERVICE

Valentina’s staff also get spicy BBQ dipped stars for extra-mile friendly service. It’s well-run and the staff does actually run. While visiting, Ned Medina was the food runner. But Ned also ran, yes RAN to get me 3 t-shirts, ran the credit card, found me behind the pit trailers to deliver shirts, then ran back to carry on with food service running from the prep trailer to the service trailer. If you want to work at Valentina’s, you need to be in shape or get in shape fast.
THE CUSTOMERS
Valentina’s also knows their audiences and considers customers family. They can excite their social media followers who will gladly and with conviction vote for Best Breakfast Tacos and Best BBQ. They offer up a breakfast taco as a hangover cure for the younger crowd who has been out all night partying in Austin.

They know how to reach their market with a limited number of Mesquite-smoked Thanksgiving turkeys for those of who want the best turkey, with no hassle and will pay for it. They are fixing our food problems that we didn’t know we had like, hangover tacos and no-cook Thanksgiving.
THE SOCIALS

The socials get a queso dipped star for their massive, consistent, shareworthy production. We eat with our eyes and Valentina’s social media channels will make your eyes hungry. Social media is crowded, but Valentina’s will make you stop, read and plot your next trip out to South Austin.

The powerful social push had posts to pre-order Thanksgiving turkeys on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. In 5 days, they sold out - 50 turkeys at $130 each. Valentina’s continued rise and shine is spreading in all ways, by word of mouth, through social media and beyond Austin.

Valentina's Social Media Score Card
21K Facebook with 4.9 score after 1224 reviews
4.8K Twitter with 2353 Tweets
50K Instagram with 2065 posts of mostly food
Trip Advisor Rating 4.5 out of 204 reviews
#4 of 377 Mexican in Austin
#13 of 2,425 Restaurants in Austin
Certificate of Excellence 2017 - 2019 Winner
THE HASHTAG
Valentina’s uses a few unique hashtags which is a practice to help stand out on social media. #TexMexBBQ is one in which they almost own with their posts. The other hashtag is a bit more mysterious and clever. It’s now on their merchandise: #hechoconamor.

#Hechoconamor is working in all 6 food trailers. Alfonso showed us #hechoconamor behind the trailers. Food runner Ned runs around making sure everyone has what they need. The line all the way down the street is #hechoconamor.

If your Spanish is rusty or non-existent, then you don’t have to look it up. Valentina’s is running like a Tex Mex BBQ making machine #hechoconamor = #MadeWithLove.

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