Taco truck owners serving lots of apologies
For years, the most controversial thing about Lloyd Taco was its prices: $8.49 for a single burrito.
That all changed last week when the popular Buffalo, N.Y.-based foodtruck empire served Chorizo Mackin’ Cheese and Aztec Brownies to workers at a federal immigration detention facility. After receiving a handful of “yikes” responses from leftists on social media, the company swiftly apologized and promised to make amends, only to spend the next few days bombarded with thousands of angry messages from conservatives who accused the regionally beloved chain of disrespecting law enforcement, veterans and America.
On social media, the company was flooded with more than 5,000 responses, nearly all of them angry, one of Lloyd Taco’s embattled co-founders, Pete Cimino, said on Monday.
Critics accused Lloyd Taco of “siding with law breakers” and threatened to vandalize the company’s trucks.
With the controversy beginning to cut into their profits, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials accusing them of discrimination, the beleaguered owners apologized again at a Monday news conference. This time, they said it had been a mistake to say that selling burritos to ICE employees was a mistake.
“We are not political,” Cimino said. “Why would we be? How can any business choose sides in our politically divided country and ever hope to succeed?”
Despite Cimino’s fervently expressed desire to remain neutral — “We make tacos, not war,” he repeated during the news conference — Mexican food has emerged as a battleground in the culture wars.
In 2018, amid widespread outcry over the administration’s family separation policy, then Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled by protesters while eating dinner at a D.C. Mexican restaurant. Just two months after that, a Mexican restaurant in Houston faced calls for a boycott when the owners welcomed Attorney General Jeff Sessions.