Look a little closer between the three and you'll spot a sign simply reading 'tacos'. It's home to Taco Locato, a taco joint that is making a name for itself for its flavour-packed Mexican offering since opening in March.

From the daily fresh-made salsa to the chocolate mole sauce used on the 16-hour smoked brisket, the focus is big flavours and authentic ingredients.

"It is all about really fresh food," owner Matt Houston says.

"We smoke our pork for five hours before we braise it in the oven with an ancho guajillo chilli reduction. Our beef brisket is done for 16 hours in a smoker and then we roll it through our homemade barbecue mole, which is a chocolatey barbecue sauce.

"Everything needs to have a flavour profile and then we balance it out with the acids in the lime juice and the slaw with the crunch, and the chilli and the salsa verde."

Houston launched Taco Locato as a food truck in January, inspired by his passion for Mexican food and a desire to get back into the kitchen a decade after switching from a career as a chef. The food truck fast became popular and then COVID-19 hit. Lockdown forced the truck into hibernation, so they made the decision to switch gears with the commercial space they were using to prep food (the truck is up and running again now).

"We bought the coffee shop [previously Rubber Duckies] in order to prep food for the food truck and we were going to keep it as a coffee shop, but that was three weeks before lockdown," Houston says.

"Lockdown came in and our taco van died, our coffee shop died and we were literally like, 'What can we do to keep the lights on?'. We decided to do some taco takeaway."

The taco menu has eight filling choices: fried barramundi, chilli lime prawns, smoked beef brisket, chipotle and orange lamb, smoked pulled pork, chicken and chorizo, smoked eggplant and mushroom, or Southern fried chicken served on a corn or wheat tortilla and stuffed with Mexican cheese, corn salsa, picco de gallo, sour cream, lettuce and salsa verde.

As well as tacos, burritos, nachos and loaded fries, the menu has a range of super-sized burgers (all $12.80 each). Even the fries have earned a following.

"Our chips have a chilli lime salt on top which is not spicy, it's just got a tang to it, and it's so addictive," Houston says.

Houston, and chef and business partner Nathan Szerenga, have big plans for the space. A laneway connected to the back of the shop has been decorated with a colourful wall mural and they hope to use it as an outdoor dining area to host beer-matched taco nights and live music.

Houston's food journey began as a child watching his mother, Marianne, cooking in her Creole and Cajun restaurant in Sydney. The family spent time living in New Orleans when Houston was a child and, later, the pair cooked together in Nicaragua in Central America, catering for the television production crew on US Survivor, an experience which allowed both to broaden their palate and understand flavours from that part of the world.

Marianne, who has worked as the head chef for Survivor since 2000, stepped in alongside Szerenga in the Taco Locato kitchen after production of the show halted due to COVID-19.

"Mum's palate is amazing. She knows flavours and what works and what doesn't," Houston says.

Taco Locato also has kids meals, desserts and a breakfast menu from 7.30am.

"We are slowly getting to where we want to be. It's still another three to six months from being where we want it," Houston says.

"We turn over about 120kg of meat a week at the moment, so we have gone from doing 40kg to 120kg over the past five months. That's giving us a good platform to work with."