At Lunch Now: Mexicue Line is Out of Control

I think it’s safe to say people are super excited about the new Mexicue Truck… they’re parked on 52nd and Park today and as of 12:10 the line is already 30 people long (and getting longer by the minute.)  I guess a little rain isn’t a deterrent when chili rubbed, pulled pork sliders are involved.

Related:
Mexicue Truck Hits the Street Serving, You Guessed It, Mexican Barbecue

18 Comments

  • Awesome. No wonder there was no line at the Steak Truck today.

  • Went to check it out, line is about half hour wait at this point. I asked a few people that were eating it and they said it was real good. Line is too long for me.

  • $1 pizza truck is pretty good

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    line was so long and I was so hungry I opted for Papa Perrone. $1 pizza truck where?

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    w00t! That’s me in the yellow shirt!!!

    Yeah, was feeling extra hungry today (no breakfast), got the Short Rib Taco, Roasted Beet Taco, Smoked Chicken Slider and Brisket Slider.

    Must say, it was all good albeit a bit small. The beet taco with goat cheese and the sliders were excellent though.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    I wouldn’t say it was worth it. It was good, but you need about four items to make a reasonable meal, and then you’re up to $12-$16. Maybe once they work out the kinks… maybe one person to take money while two make the menu items?

  • I walked by around 1 or 1:15 and asked a guy who was 3rd in line how long he had been waiting and he said 40 minutes.

    Maybe if I lived here I’d chill, but for a midtown lunch? I can wait, thanks.

  • Maybe we need a guide, similar to the Shake Shack wait time one?

  • More like Meh-xicue.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Went here today and was impressed with the food, but unimpressed with the service. Wait at 12:30pm was well over an hour. When I finally got to the counter, several of the items I tried to order were sold out; I understand that happens, but at least cross them out on the chalkboard or something.

    The real problem, though, is the service. The two guys working in that truck are possibly the slowest food service workers I’ve ever seen in my life. I had to repeat my order three times because they kept forgetting. In addition, there was a ton of time wasted inside the truck. Manually cutting the round taco shells to be a little bit smaller meant that only one person was actually making orders much of the time. Having the same people prepare the food and handle payment meant that after every order the guys had to take off their gloves, deal with payment, then dig another pair of gloves out of the box. Delicately placing each individual leaf of cilantro is great practice in an upscale restaurant, but drastically slows down the line.

    As I said, though, the food is fantastic. They just need to figure out the service issues and this has the potential to be a great truck.

    • based on this and lizibee’s comment, it sounds like they just need to increase the meat portion size and not waste time reducing the shell size…faster service and happier customers all around. This was a problem at barros luco when they first opened but people complained and their sandwiches got bigger.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Could not agree more with 44inarow about the service speed. We actually came from the other side of midtown because the food sounded so good but when we got there at 12:20 the line was already quite long. We were fine waiting but we quickly realized the only time the line moved was when someone got fed up and left (which was happening more and more) or every five minutes when they were able to fufill a single order. I am fine with smaller portions if they are good but what was really frustrating was not that they had only 2 people inside the truck doing the work (slowly as indicated previously) but they had one hipster guy sitting in the front of the truck on his iphone doing the twitter update and generally just talking with friends as they came by. With a line that long, and service that slow, you would expect the third guy to get off his damn phone and help out the troops in the back but he seemed very content with his feet up to just watch the line and bask in the success of the business. Perhaps if you know you will sell out you don’t need to hustle to move the orders but for folks waiting 45+ minutes in line it just felt insulting. Needless to say, we left after 10 minutes when we really had not moved much at all. Maybe the food truck thing is getting a bit too “hip” but I still like to think of it as people with a great idea and a lot of hustle who are trying to make a go of it. This cart evidenced absolutely no hustle and from the aspect of sitting in line and watching the third guy doing nothing to help, it seemed to reek of entitlement as well. I was over at the new shake shack on 44th and 8th last week and they hustle non stop – including having someone come out to the line and offer water on hot days. That is how you run a business when you want to provide both great food and service to your customers. For a new truck that is obviously getting a lot of buzz I just hope they learn to treat their customers with more respect.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    I wanted to address some of the comments here about our service at Mexicue. We agree it was FAR too slow this week and it pained us to see people waiting in line for so long. Most of this is due to the fact that this was our first week out there and had no idea we would have the demand we did (which we’re very grateful for). We should have provided the guys working the truck with more training, but we figured they would be able to ease into things as we built up a following over a couple months. Clearly this was a mistake on our part. We also currently only have two workers with licences, so that really limits how many orders we can process in the truck. However, we should have a third starting in about two weeks.

    I’m hoping those that had a bad experience with service will give us another chance. It may be a while until we get it down to a science, but we’re working really, really hard to get there. Thanks to those of you who made suggestions on how we can improve — we’re listening and taking your comments very seriously.

    Feel free to contact me directly with any additional suggestions, comments, gripes, etc. You can reach me (Thomas) at info@mexicueNY.com or 917.568.8922.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Thank you for the honest and thoughtful response. I am still looking forward to getting my hands on one of those bbg’d beet tacos (as well as a short rib and chorizo too). Good luck getting the service kinks worked out. I am definitely willing to brave the line one more time.

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