Mexican Catering For A Party?

I plan to hold a Cinco De Mayo party next week, but after hosting a potluck a couple weeks ago and a Mother's Day brunch the following day, I just don't have it in me to cook. So, I am looking to buy cooked meat by the pound (trays of carne asada, al pastor, and barbacoa ideally) along with rice, beans, and a big ass stack of tortillas. I can do onions, cilantro, and salsa myself, though it would be even better if everything came together.

My first instinct was to go to Tierra Caliente, since I remember them having a big sign up in their Armitage store about how they cater parties. But at their new location on North Ave, the boss-man didn't really seem too interested. I was able to get general pricing out of him but it seems like they don't really do it anymore, or at least not regularly.

I guess my concern here is figuring out a place that will do it, do it affordable, and do it well. I feel like the temptation with a lot of run of the mill taquerias doing this volume will be to not really care about quality. But I want to make sure the al pastor is crisp, the barbacoa is moist, etc etc

Does anyone have any suggestions, or perhaps even a rec based on past experience? I live in Avondale, so I'm immediately accessible to Logan/Humboldt/West Town and most other grand corridors of Chicago taco-dom.

Maybe not quite what you are going for, but we had catering from Big Star and were incredibly pleased with the food, price, and how professional/organized the catering operation is.

DClose wrote:Does anyone have any suggestions, or perhaps even a rec based on past experience? I live in Avondale, so I'm immediately accessible to Logan/Humboldt/West Town and most other grand corridors of Chicago taco-dom.

We had an excellent party for about 30 a few years ago from Jesse's Mexican Grill ... very affordable.

Jesse's Mexican Grill
6950 N Western Ave
Chicago, IL 60645
(773) 856-6050

FWIW, the following year we got BBQ from Jesse's next door neighbor, Rub Backcountry Smokehouse, also very affordable.

At our summer work picnic, they have a guy who comes out with a cooker and cooks all types of Mexican food. I can track his company name down if you need...

I second Big Star. Used it recently for a party on a seriously tight budget and it was delicious and ample.

Bargain Play with major upside:
Carniceria Jimenez (you've got a few close - not all have taquerias for catering, tho.)
I'd try their Al Pastor first - to see if you like it ( I definitely do not.) I wouldn't hesitate to use them for carne asada, barbacoa, carnitas, rice, beans, several different salsas, guac, chips, tortillas. They tend to do their chicken in more of a fajita style with large chunks of chicken with peppers and onions, but if you tell them you'd like a finer chop, they would probably have no issue. I've mentioned Jimenez to a few friends for catering, and never heard anything besides fantastic for the price. Having the cervezas and margaritas flowing helps, but I wouldn't hesitate to use them at all for a bargain play. No idea of Big Star's prices, but I remember the first time I entertained the idea of Jimenez for catering, their prices were so low that I thought it might be a joke. Everything was perfectly fine - only quibble was the large chicken chunks and the fajita style prep of it. The carne asada, barbacoa and carnitas were perfectly fine, and quite good for the price. Again, the pastor - definitely not my thing at Jimenez, but maybe it'd be worth it to get your stuff from more than one place if you're dead set on Al Pastor. My stance on Al Pastor around town is that it's generally horrible (but I did love TC's!)

Also -
La Casa Del Pueblo on Blue Island. I've never used them for catering, but I'd assume they'd have no issue, and you'd be able to do tamales as well. If you've never been, and your crowd likes to think they are "hip," your side story can be, "This is where Rick Bayless shops." (He's filmed a few spots in his show wandering through their aisles.) It's a small grocery store on one side, and an awesome, awesome, awesome homestyle food cafeteria on the other side of the parking lot. The cafeteria also pumps out food orders from the kitchen - plenty of rustic cookin' madres and abuelitas manning the kitchen there. Love that place to death. Haven't been in a while, but anytime I'm within a mile, it's a no question stop.

Never used them, but I noticed when lunching there one day that Carnitas Uruapan caters, and the prices looked very reasonable.

I checked Jimenez and compared them to Tierra Caliente. They both break out to be about $12 per pound for meat, which is certainly a pretty good price. However, the big difference is that Tierra is actually by the pound, versus Jimenez which is by the tray - a small tray is about $80 and is about 7 pounds of meat. So, for my needs of having a party for about 12-15 people, the Jimenez pricing is just too large of scale, since they do not do servings under that "small" tray size and a single tray would probably feed all my guests but limit us to just a single type of meat.

So, instead I am leaning towards Tierra Caliente since I can get it by the pound and that will allow for a better overall variety with a smaller crowd, at essentially the same price as Jimenez.

Big Star is surprisingly affordable for what it is, but the pricing is still way more than what I would pay for either of the above options. Big Star would be about $16 per person just for tacos (incl associated toppings) but I can get the meal done for a fraction of that if I go with Tierra and deal with mincing onion and cilantro myself, and buying packages of tortillas myself.

After a bit more reflection and the fact I just am not sure if I trust steamer trays as a suitable method for al pastor, I am leaning towards doing carnitas, barbacoa, and carne asada from Tierra Caliente. Total cost should be around $60-$75 for all the fillings, some rice/beans, and salsa.

Following up this thread with a recent experience. We held a taco party at our home in Wicker Park last weekend for 20-25 people.

I wanted to get all of my catering from Carniceria y Taqueria Tierra Caliente on North Ave (sister store to the location on Archer Ave further south), and stopped in two weeks before the party to try their tacos and talk with them about pricing and details. I was told I needed to speak to the manager, Armando. Armando is a tough man to reach - his schedule seems relatively unpredictable, and he often isn't in when his employees expected him to be. Ultimately, a week before the party, after trying to reach him unsuccessfully at least 5 times, I went with ordering a pan of carne asada and pollo from Lazo's tacos (large pan, feeding 20, currently goes for $180, and includes many many tortillas, onions, cilantro, lettuce and tomato, and 2 large salsas - red and green), and a small tray of beans (feeding 10, $30). I ordered two pans of mexican rice from Dos Urban Cantina (each pan feeds 10, $13 a pan). Interestingly, Lazo's tacos would have charged $60 for a large pan of mexican rice - clearly they hadn't really thought through the pricing as I can't imagine anyone would pay that for RICE (which I was frankly considering making myself). Then on the morning of the party, since we were expecting closer to 25 people, I stopped by Tierra Caliente, was successful at speaking with Armando in person, and ordered another 3 lbs of al pastor and 1 lb of lengua (my favorite), which again came with tortillas, onions, cilantro, and 2 salsas. So - we ended up making 3 stops to pick up the catered food.

Overall - the estimates were well conservative. We had PLENTY of food leftover despite 25 hungry guests. We look forward to tacos for days! Now that I know the pricing, I'm more comfortable ordering from Tierra Caliente without speaking with Armando in the future as they have a pretty good clerk who works the register who seems to be pretty reliable. Would order from any of these 3 locations again.