Vecinos<\/a> opened in East Austin.<\/p>\nAhmed was among the food truck\u2019s first customers. He loved the food. The homemade flour tortillas reminded him of home. As a Pakistani, Ahmed grew up eating parathas \u2014\u00a0homemade flatbreads.<\/p>\n
But there was a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember asking if they had lard in them,\u201d Ahmed said.<\/p>\n
For Ahmed, who is Muslim, and adheres to a halal diet that prohibits consumption of pork, pork products, blood and alcohol, lard meant the tortillas were off-limits.<\/p>\n
Instead of walking away full of disappointment, Ahmed took a chance and asked the cook if they would consider making the tortillas without lard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m like \u2026 these guys are not gonna change the recipe for me,\u201d Ahmed said, \u201cbut \u2026 it doesn’t hurt to mention it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahmed didn\u2019t expect much to come from the question, but chef Jon Escamilla took the request to heart, and to his surprise, when he returned to Vecinos a few weeks later, he discovered the chefs had started experimenting to try and accommodate his request.<\/p>\n
“I remember going to the food truck, and I think it was Jon that was telling me, \u2018We’ve been messing around with a few recipes without lard,\u2019\u201d Ahmed said.<\/p>\n
He was ecstatic. \u201cI couldn’t believe that it had anything to do with my request. It was amazing,” he said.<\/p>\n
After the tortillas were adjusted to be prepared without lard, Ahmed began to frequent Vecinos even more. So much so that he ended up connecting them with his local mosque to cater an event that included their lard-free tortillas.<\/p>\n
At the event, the conversation shifted to other possibilities that would allow more of the Muslim community to partake in the cuisine that Vecinos was cooking up.<\/p>\n
Escamilla was skeptical if it\u2019d be possible. \u201cOur conversation was like, dude, we can’t commit to fully halal because we cannot find beef cheeks,\u201d Escamilla said.<\/p>\n
But Ahmed saw too much delicious potential for his community and for Vecinos to give up without trying. \u201cGive me five minutes,\u201d Ahmed told him.<\/p>\n
Moments later, Ahmed reappeared with a halal rancher. Then, a halal butcher.<\/p>\n
It was at this point that Escamilla began to realize how similar Ahmed’s community was to his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it’s so close-knit,\u201d Escamilla said, \u201cso much family and everybody knows everybody. They’re all like, \u2018Let me help you out, let me help you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When Escamilla switched to the new halal meat supplier, he and his staff at Vecino\u2019s noticed that they were actually getting a better product to cook with.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789763050_789_.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Louise Min Van Assche<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Identity Productions<\/p>\n
Imad Ahmed and chef Jon Escamilla spoke with Mando Rayo on the Tacos of Texas podcast about how their love for food and community helped change the menu at Vecinos to serve more of their Muslim neighbors. <\/p>\n
“We were cutting them open and it was like, \u2018Bro, this is actually a lot better,\u201d Escamilla said. \u201cBeautiful color, nice and shiny like it wasn’t all grayed out. So I was like, \u2018OK cool.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
At that point, Vecinos decided to have a halal menu.<\/p>\n
The significance of Vecinos going halal wasn’t just that Muslims could now eat their tortillas and meat, it was that they could eat Texas food.<\/p>\n
“Just like anyone else in Austin we want to eat barbecue, we wanna eat tacos,” Ahmed said.<\/p>\n
That was the opportunity he saw at Vecinos.<\/p>\n
“To have an authentic taco spot with halal meat is something a lot of Muslims are looking for,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cAnd so I let them know there’s a lot of demand here and it’s really untapped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once Vecinos made the switch, the word spread through Austin’s Muslim community. People shared the truck in Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and Ahmed introduced the owners to the leadership at local mosques for catering gigs at community events.<\/p>\n
Soon, Muslims were traveling to Vecinos from outside East Austin specifically for the tacos. The business had found customers it didn’t necessarily know were looking for it.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most tangible example of what changed Vecinos is sitting inside a breakfast taco.<\/p>\n
For most Texans, Mexican chorizo is an ordinary breakfast staple but for Ahmed and other Muslims in Austin it was just something they heard others talk about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve always heard from my non-Muslim friends how great chorizo is,\u201d Ahmed said, \u201cbut I’ve never had the chance to try it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was until Vecinos helped it become halal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith what Jon and Manny are doing, I’m able to have breakfast tacos with bacon on there, or with chorizo,\u201d Ahmed said, \u201cwhich has been amazing and a treat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Check out the full conversation with Imad Ahmed and chef Jon Escamilla <\/a>of Vecinos Tacos on the Tacos of Texas podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Austinite Imad Ahmed it was never really about tacos, it was about having a place where everybody…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,13739,152421,152422,3570,152420,112178,150161],"class_list":["post-440328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-tacos","tag-best-tacos","tag-halal-tacos","tag-tacos","tag-tacos-of-texas","tag-texas-tacos","tag-vecinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}