Vignettes of New Paltz: Taco Shack, Sunday September 3, 2017, 6:24 pm
If you look up “hidden gem” in the dictionary, you may very well find a photo of Taco Shack. Tucked between New Paltz’s finest McDonald’s and large selection beer shop, it’s hot pink exterior can surprisingly be driven past unacknowledged.
After what felt like the longest and most laziest rainy Sunday of our college career, a few friends and I decided to roll out of our beds and hit the road. Roughly 23 minutes later, we arrived only to find the parking lot filled to capacity… something unusual for this spot. We waited for two middle aged men to load their trunks with cases of beer from the neighboring package store, parked our car, and eagerly hopped to the pavement with three loud door slams.
We marched up the wet wooden ramp and eagerly approached the register, ready to recite our typical orders. We stood anxious and hungry for roughly 5 minutes and observed the young woman who was serving what seemed to be a cafeteria of college students. Though the walls were painted bright oranges and reds, the overall mood inside the shack seemed just as blue as the weather outside. Each of the three tables were elbow packed with tired-looking, sweatpant wearing youngsters who looked like they were still fighting off last night’s hangover. My friends and I fit right in.
We did the subtle “cough cough” and placed our menus down, hoping for the woman behind the counter to take our order. It worked. Luckily, a table was leaving as we finished paying and we were able to find seats. Less than 10 minutes later, she placed two trays of heaven before us. As I dug into my tacos I wondered why they were individually wrapped in wax paper. Maybe to eliminate mess? For portability? Added suspense? I figured it was probably a combination of all three. After realizing I only had one taco left, I looked around the tiny little shack only to realize that we were the only diners left.
We lowered our voices to adjust to the intimacy of the setting and suddenly heard a loud retching noise come from the deep and dark unknown of the back kitchen. We looked at each other sharply and slowed our chewing. Could that have been what we thought it was? We looked at the woman behind the cashier who had taken our order and she seemed unphased. Since the food prep and cashier area are positioned closely in an l-shape design, we figured it must have been an aggressive sneeze that we mistook for a gag. The noise, however, was so shocking that we suddenly became full and cleared our trays.
We left Taco Shack as an older man entered. Though he definitely was not in college, he did fit the sweatpant uniform. As we walked across the now stark parking lot to our car, we agreed that while that was strange and unusual we would definitely be back for more.
