How did a guy named Nick Hammer from Collierville learn to make tacos and eventually open the Texas Tacos food truck in Byhalia, Mississippi?
First, the restaurant business runs in the family. His grandmother owned Hammer’s Homestead House in the late ’70s in Pickwick, Tennessee. His uncle owned another Pickwick restaurant, Snoopy’s.
Hammer, 45, learned to cook as a child. “We were taught as kids that you need to know how to cook for yourself,” he says. “Iron your own clothes.”
He learned to make fajitas when he was 16 from a friend in McAllen, Texas. They began winning fajita cooking contests after Hammer moved to Texas. They used sirloin because good fajita meat or “skirt steak” is expensive.
Hammer also learned to cook Mexican food, including different salsas and sauces, from the wife of another friend in McAllen. “She had a very clean way of cooking Mexican food,” he remembers. “It wasn’t super greasy, unhealthy.”
Mexican food was a part of Hammer’s daily life in Texas, where he and his ex-wife, who was half Hispanic, lived for 15 years. “Breakfast tacos. Maybe tacos for lunch. But not every single day. It’s just that the tortilla down there is such an important part. It’s just like bread,” he says.
And there are so many ways to eat tacos. “You throw something together with meat, chicken or pork or beef.”
A carpenter by trade, Hammer worked with groups of men in the Texas oil fields. “All of these guys are either from South Texas or from Mexico,” he remembers. “They would cook out every night.”
He realized food he gets in Mexican restaurants “north of San Antonio” is “not the same food they are cooking for themselves at home. Or the same food that they’re eating while they’re here. Totally different. It’s almost like there’s a commercial Mexican food and the actual home-cooked stuff they eat.”
It includes “a lot more of everything. Lots of garlic. Lots of onion, cilantro, lime, and jalapeños.”
Hammer and his family moved to Marshall County in 2019 to work on family property. He and his son, Cole, 23, also worked construction jobs around the country for an Atlanta-based company. But they wanted a change. “We just got tired of traveling and living in hotels.”
Hammer bought a 22-foot-long trailer and opened his Texas Tacos food truck with his son and his mother, Bunny Hammer, in September 2021. “I just wanted something that was local where I could make a decent family wage and stay close to home.”
As for the food, he says, “We cook all of our food fresh every day. And sometimes several times a day.”
And, Hammer points out, everything is “made from scratch.”
In a nod to his roots, he calls his food “Texas” instead of “Mexican,” Hammer says. “The further you get from the border coming this way, the food changes until you’re left with a watered-down version of what the original was. We don’t want to give a watered-down version of Mexican food. If you went to South Texas, you’d get something similar to what we’re making.”
For his tacos, Hammer uses sirloin meat for the steak and tenderloin for the chicken.
His tacos also have the right texture. “When you eat a taco, you want it to chew up easily.”
They also sell “big nachos” and the “Big Tex Potato,” which is a papa loaded with meat, cheese, and vegetables. “Enough to feed two or three people.”
Texas Tacos is about to introduce “street corn” — “An ear of corn, whether it’s cut off the cob or on the cob, that has Cotija cheese, butter, a layer of mayonnaise to coat the Cotija cheese, and chili powder. It’s grilled roasted corn.”
Hammer, who also caters events, features a potato loaded with ingredients, but he didn’t want to feature a menu loaded with items. “We wanted a simpler menu. And things on the menu we wanted to do really, really well.”
Texas Tacos is in the Crain Auto parking lot on MS-178 in Byhalia, Mississippi. For orders or catering, call (662) 420-9562