Funky Dallas Taco Chain Is Opening in Downtown Austin

Velvet Taco, the Dallas-based taco mini-chain which made its way into Austin in 2017, is opening a second local restaurant in the downtown area. It’ll be found at 522 Congress Avenue, Suite #100 within the Scarbrough Building, aiming to open on Monday, February 24, just before South by Southwest madness takes over downtown Austin.

The downtown Austin Velvet Taco will offer the same menu and late-night hours. This means new-school tacos like Cuban pig, Kobe bacon burger, fish and chips, chicken and waffles, and hot tofu. Then there are sides like queso made with red curry and coconut, elotes, and slices of red velvet cake, as well as drinks such as margaritas. There’s also the Backdoor Chicken special, where people go to the backdoor of the restaurant to ask for the $20 meal with a whole slow-roasted rotisserie chicken, tortillas, and sides.

Notable, this Velvet Taco location will be found in the same building as the massive Punch Bowl Social, which opened in December, and just down the street from Tacodeli’s first-ever downtown restaurant.

Velvet Taco seems to also be opening somewhere in the North Austin area based on a Craigslist posting. The restaurant appears to be somewhere between bordered by Metric Boulevard, West Braker Lane, North Lamar Boulevard, and West Rundberg Lane. A rep for the company wouldn’t confirm this location.

Velvet Taco was also pegged to open a South Austin location with the burgeoning Music Lane development at South Congress. The same rep also wouldn’t confirm whether this was still happening or not: “We haven’t finalized any additional leases in Austin,” aside from the Congress Avenue location.

February 6, 2020: This article has been updated to include Velvet Taco’s projected opening date in downtown Austin.

• All Coverage of Velvet Taco [EATX]