Camino Taco

Camino Taco runs a bar deeper than a taco counter needs. At the base of Blue Mountain Village, it pours a Margarita Flossy, a Champagne Margarita and a frozen Beerita, keeps both a tequila list and a wine list on hand, and still turns out its food fast and unfussy from one short menu. The mismatch is the whole idea: this is a Mexican street-food stop built for a ski-resort crowd, where a lunch off the hills and a round of margaritas once the lifts close are the same visit, ordered at the same counter.

The tacos are the reason to come, and the board is broader than the format suggests. The Chicken Tinga — the menu's standout — pairs slow-roasted chicken with corn salsa, radish, cotija and lime crema. The Baja Fish stacks battered cod with green apple, radish, lime slaw and fresh guacamole, crunch and brightness in the same bite. The Birria Short Rib brings braised brisket with charred pepper and onion, pickled jalapeño and chipotle-lime crema, and a Barbacoa taco holds its own slot on the ordering menu beside it. From there it keeps widening: a Gringo Taco on spiced grass-fed beef, the hot-glazed Stranger Wings Taco with ranch crema, and a vegetarian Buffalo Cauliflower Taco with avocado crema and slaw. It is a short list that still leaves a table with real decisions.

The same fillings scale up for bigger appetites. Bowls and burritos rebuild the tacos into something heartier — the Beef Birria Bowl over lime basmati rice with refried beans and chipotle crema, the vegan Buffalo Cauliflower Burrito, the plant-forward Tulum Rice Bowl for the vegans at the table. The vegan options aren't a token line either; they are built out rather than stripped-down versions of the meat dishes. Shareables handle the group: Fresh Smashed Guacamole with chips and optional queso, a loaded Beef Nacho Boat, and Fries Supreme buried under queso, grass-fed beef and lime crema. Nothing is precious and nothing needs a translation — this is food meant to be ordered quickly and split across a full table.

The shape of the menu says what the kitchen is after. It is not chasing regional authenticity or a single signature; it is covering every table a resort village sends through the door — the meat-eater, the vegan, the kid, the group splitting shareables, the pair who came mostly for margaritas. Breadth without sprawl is the discipline, and the short, legible board is how it stays fast when the village fills up.

Dessert gets more attention than the format usually allows. The Churro Sundae layers cinnamon-sugar churros with soft serve and three sauces, the Churro for Two arrives with chocolate and caramel dips, and soft-serve builds like the Cookie Monster and Red Velvet keep the sweet end from being an afterthought. The operation is tuned to its setting. Since opening in 2018, Camino Taco has taken reservations and walk-ins both, fielded larger groups by phone, and linked to Room Service Blue for hotel delivery and in-store pickup — the plumbing of a place that feeds visitors on their own schedule. Kids' portions and a family-friendly setting make it an easy call for mixed groups, and it runs seven days a week from late morning to late evening, catching the crowd coming off the hills at midday and the dinner tables before checkout.

What holds it together is how little it overreaches. Camino Taco is not an ambitious Mexican kitchen or a destination cantina, and it doesn't pretend to be — it is a taco-and-margarita stop that knows exactly what a resort village asks of it: tacos that hold up, a drink list with more range than it strictly needs, and churros to finish. In a place that empties and refills with the seasons, that steadiness is its own kind of landmark.