30 January 2026
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Monterrey, Mexico goes to work early. The industrial hub, just a few hours drive from the U.S. border, is where much of the continent’s cement is mixed, cars come together and beers are brewed.
As such, local dining customs are calibrated toward early morning fuel.
“The truth is that people from Monterrey, we’re all early risers,” says María de la Luz Salinas Uribe of Tacos "El Compadre," a Monterrey institution near the center of town. “You rush off and grab some tacos, and then you go to work.”
Tacos mañaneros, or morning tacos, are a tradition here, a riff on the national staple distinct to the hardscrabble region. The tortillas – corn, flour or a lightly fried option – are filled with hearty stews, a dozen or so of which are most typical. Eggs are on offer, but hardly the star.
At Tacos “El Compadre,” set in an oversized streetside kitchen across from a cemetery, customers show up as early as 7 a.m. Salinas’s family has been in the spot since the 1970s, when her father-in-law first started selling steamed tacos out of a little pot.
Their specialty is the dorado style, with tacos crisped in oil on the grill until they’re golden brown. Barbacoa, a juicy, slow-cooked style favored in the cattle-rich north, is the top filling, made here with shredded beef head and little adornment.
“Many people ask me, 'What do you put in it?' I tell them the truth, I don't put anything in it, I just put salt and love,” Salinas says.
Tacos Piedra 1 starts preparing their barbacoa the day before, steaming beef neck and cheek until 3 a.m., when the first cook arrives to pick apart the tender meat.
The street cart is located by the city’s most important university, Tec de Monterrey, and a go-to for students trudging off to early class.
“Generations and generations of students have passed through. Now the grandparents of the new students come and say, ‘Hey, I studied here, I came here for tacos in the 80s, in the 90s,’” says Ricardo Piedra, whose father has run the taquería for 35 years.
Tacos for breakfast in Monterrey, he says, is just the “way of life.”
“Everyone comes to order tacos – three or four or five tacos,” he adds.
In the 1980s, street stands selling tacos multiplied across Mexican cities, as a faltering economy pushed many into the informal market. They remain popular today as a kind of working class cafeteria, filling in for a home-cooked meal when the office is a long commute away.
In Monterrey, where a taquería is never more than a few blocks from anywhere, marketing is important. At Tacos Doña Mary La Gritona (Bib Gourmand), the draw is in the name.
Mary Reyes Sánchez, the restaurant’s titular “shouter,” has a national reputation for her cooking and her sass.
“My voice is strong. My gaze is commanding. I have a very sharp memory when it comes to my customers,” she says.
Reyes’s street stall, crowded with a griddle and casserole pots loaded with stews, is always busy. And time is money. For the diner who reaches the front of the line with an unclear or drawn-out order, an affectionate barb is the likely reply.
So, what does she recommend for the uninitiated?
“I’d recommend you eat a barbacoa taco, a machacado taco, a chicharrón taco, a quesadilla with grilled meat. All of that is very tasty,” Reyes says.
Machaca, another regional specialty, is a kind of salted and dried meat first prepared as a preservation technique. Here, it's reconstituted and served simply with eggs.
The standard centerpiece of the American breakfast is just an add-on in a taco mañanero, also good mixed with chorizo, potatoes or a gooey nopal cactus.
But still, they work well as a measurement of Doña Mary’s success: she often sells some 600 eggs in a single morning shift.
“Mexico gives us the opportunity to be entrepreneurial, to be smart, to take advantage of our age, to take advantage of our work, and to make a living,” she says.
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Hero image: Tacos from Tacos "El Compadre - © Corporación para el Desarrollo Turístico de Nuevo Leòn /Tacos "El Compadre"
