This profile is in active compilation — some details are awaiting a cited source.

KC Tacos and Wings is a taquería at 5200 Independence Ave in Kansas City’s Historic Northeast, created in February 2024 when Juan Bautista — a Historic Northeast native and career restaurateur — took over the long-running El Taco at that address, kept the existing staff on, and added wings to the menu because nothing on Independence Avenue was selling them.1 Bautista’s run in the trade starts at age 16 at Garozzo’s Ristorante in Columbus Park, continues through Carmen’s Cafe in Brookside, which he opened in 1999, and El Indio, Pollos Asados Al Carbon, the barbecued-chicken operation he started at Chelsea and Independence in 2015; KC Tacos and Wings is where he now spends most of his time, opening the restaurant himself each morning.1 Tier 1 — owner-operated, resident owner, independent.

Predecessor: the address traded as El Taco before February 2024. Bautista took over the going concern and retained the previous restaurant’s staff rather than restaffing — a detail Northeast News records explicitly.1 Registry entries or directory data still listing El Taco at 5200 Independence Ave are superseded.

Description

KC Tacos and Wings is a counter-service Mexican restaurant on the eastern reach of the Independence Avenue corridor, near the point where the avenue leaves the dense Historic Northeast blocks. It describes itself on its own Facebook page in two words — “Tacos y alitas”, tacos and wings — which is a fair summary of the concept.2

The wings are the deliberate addition. When Bautista took the restaurant over he identified chicken wings as a gap in what Independence Avenue was selling, and built them into an otherwise taquería menu. Flavors recorded by Northeast News are garlic parmesan, buffalo, lemon pepper, barbecue, spicy garlic and Thai.1

Burrito bowls came from the staff. Northeast News reports that the addition was suggested by women working in the restaurant who wanted more variety on the menu — a small but concrete instance of the retained-staff decision paying back into the business.1

A standing Wednesday promotion runs: buy one order of wings and receive an extra half order free.12

The restaurant sits in a stretch of Independence Avenue that the Northeast News and the NEKC Chamber of Commerce treat as a single dining corridor, alongside Taquería México, Charrito’s, Yasmeen Cafe, Pho Bowl, Elvira’s, Frutopia and Eleos.3

Ownership and history

Juan Bautista is a Historic Northeast native and the owner.1 His account of his own career, as given to Northeast News, runs:

  • Age 16 — first job in food service, at Garozzo’s Ristorante, 526 Harrison St, in Columbus Park.
  • 1999 — opens his first restaurant, Carmen’s Cafe, at 6307 Brookside Plaza. As of the August 2025 article it had been operating 26 years.
  • 2015 — returns to the Northeast to start El Indio, Pollos Asados Al Carbon, a food truck at Chelsea and Independence Avenues specializing in barbecued and Latin-inspired chicken. El Indio runs a Tuesday special: buy one chicken, get one and a half for $20.
  • February 2024 — takes over El Taco at 5200 Independence Ave and converts it to KC Tacos and Wings, keeping the staff.

Bautista spends the majority of his working time at KC Tacos and Wings and starts each morning there.1 On the changing economics of the trade he told the paper simply: “The service industry has changed” — pointing to the growth of takeout and third-party delivery.1

That trajectory — Columbus Park Italian kitchen at sixteen, a Brookside café at his own name’s risk in 1999, a Northeast food truck in 2015, an Independence Avenue storefront in 2024 — is the reason this is a Tier 1 entry rather than a listing. It is a single operator’s twenty-five-year working map of the city’s independent restaurant economy.

Names note: Juan Bautista, Carmen’s Cafe, El Indio, Pollos Asados Al Carbon and Garozzo’s Ristorante are reproduced exactly as Northeast News prints them. No co-owner, spouse or partner is named in any source read, and none is invented — “. Carmen’s Cafe at 6307 Brookside Plaza should not be confused with the separately-entered carmens-cocina; whether the two are related is unverified.

menu_status: partial. The items below are documented; the prices are not.

ItemPrice
Tacos“
Chicken wings — garlic parmesan“
Chicken wings — buffalo“
Chicken wings — lemon pepper“
Chicken wings — barbecue“
Chicken wings — spicy garlic“
Chicken wings — Thai“
Burrito bowls“

Why no prices: the business has no own website and no first-party Toast, Square or Clover ordering page was found; its Facebook page publishes no price list. Prices for this restaurant circulate only on delivery platforms and aggregator menu scrapers, which run materially above in-store pricing and are not carried on Registry pages. Items are recorded regardless, because items are what the site’s search indexes.12

Standing offer: Wednesday — buy one order of wings, receive an additional half order free.1

Separate business, recorded for completeness: the owner’s El Indio, Pollos Asados Al Carbon runs a Tuesday special of one chicken plus a half chicken for $20.1 That price belongs to El Indio, not to KC Tacos and Wings.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Julia Williams, “Historic Northeast Restaurateur Dishes Up Wings Along Independence Avenue,” Northeast News, August 20, 2025 (accessed 2026-08-13). Asserts: Juan Bautista, Historic Northeast native, took control of El Taco at 5200 Independence Ave in February 2024 and converted it to KC Tacos and Wings, retaining the previous restaurant’s staff; Bautista began in food service at age 16 at Garozzo’s Ristorante, 526 Harrison St, Columbus Park; opened Carmen’s Cafe, 6307 Brookside Plaza, Brookside, in 1999, operating 26 years as of publication; established El Indio, Pollos Asados Al Carbon, a food truck at Chelsea and Independence Avenues, in 2015, specializing in barbecued and Latin-inspired chicken; added wings on identifying a gap in wing availability on Independence Avenue; added burrito bowls at the suggestion of female employees seeking menu diversity; Bautista quote “The service industry has changed,” referencing increased takeout and delivery services including DoorDash; Wednesday promotion of one wing order plus a free half order; wing flavors garlic parmesan, buffalo, lemon pepper, barbecue, spicy garlic and Thai; El Indio Tuesday special of one chicken plus one half for $20; Facebook page at facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556314664983. No prices for KC Tacos and Wings items are given in the article. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  2. KC Tacos and Wings, official Facebook page (accessed 2026-08-13). Asserts: business name KC Tacos and Wings; address 5200 Independence Ave, Kansas City, MO; phone (816) 298-7560; self-description “Tacos y alitas”; Wednesday wings promotion; most recent post published the same day as access (2026-08-13), establishing current operation. No hours and no prices are published on the page. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. “Local Cuisine is Just Around The Corner,” Northeast News, January 2, 2026 (accessed 2026-08-13). Asserts: Independence Avenue is treated as a dining corridor of owner-operated restaurants whose owners live in the community; the corridor roster named includes Yasmeen Cafe, Pho Bowl, San Antonio Market, El Paso Del Norte, Elvira’s Bakery, Charrito’s, Taqueria Mexico, Taqueria El Torito, Core Coffee, Eleos Coffeehouse, Frutopia, Taco Express and KC Wings and Tacos; the NEKC Chamber of Commerce hosts an Independence Avenue International Taste and Tour each June and September. Note: the article renders the name as “KC Wings and Tacos”; the business’s own Facebook page and the Northeast News owner profile both render it KC Tacos and Wings, which is the form used on this page. ↩

See also

Categories

On the record — ks.city/registry/kc-tacos-and-wings · record updated 2026-08-13