Mexican-heritage couple Fernanda Reyes + Brian Goldman Ruiz; pop-up 2019 → Overland Park brick-and-mortar 2021; chef-driven regional Mexican; Best Mexican in KC, Spring 2027 — Newcomer Pick honoree.

Description

Taco Naco KC is the Mexican-heritage couple Fernanda Reyes + Brian Goldman Ruiz chef-driven operation. Reyes trained at the Instituto Culinario de Mexico in Monterrey, Mexico and later earned an MBA in food and beverage nutrition; her childhood included her mother’s family restaurant in Mexico.1 Goldman Ruiz brings his own Mexican-heritage background.

The operation started as pop-ups at festivals + the Overland Park farmer’s market in 2019, then secured a brick-and-mortar in February 2021 in Overland Park, KS — in the former space of one of Goldman Ruiz’s favorite Mexican restaurants from his childhood. The cuisine is deliberately non-Tex-Mex: regional Mexican preparations + birria-forward menu + creative dishes celebrating the couple’s heritage.

The 7-year tenure (2019 pop-up → 5 years brick-and-mortar) places Taco Naco under the 10-year Long-Tenure threshold for Best Mexican Award Top-5 eligibility — but the operation’s identity is exactly the Newcomer Pick designation: chef-credential lineage + Mexican-heritage couple + post-2020 wave of KC Mexican operators committed to building here.

Tier classification

Tier 1 — KC-resident chef-owner operation; Mexican-heritage couple.

Criterion match: chef-owner operation; KC-area resident (Overland Park); independent (not chain); 7-year tenure too short for Top-5 strict reading; Newcomer Pick designation honors the operation appropriately.

Best Mexican Award — Newcomer Pick designation

Per Best-Mexican-In-KC-Spring-2027-Shortlist-Synthesis §Newcomer-Pick: Taco Naco is the inaugural Newcomer Pick honoree. The Newcomer Pick is a sidebar recognition for operators under the 10-year threshold who’ve earned recognition but don’t fit the Long-Tenure Top-5 criterion. One operator per year, named without ranking. Taco Naco anchors the Y1 sidebar.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Taco Naco KC — “Who We Are.” https://taconacokc.com/who-we-are. Source for Fernanda Reyes Instituto Culinario de Mexico Monterrey training + MBA + family-restaurant childhood; Brian Goldman Ruiz partnership; 2019 pop-up → February 2021 brick-and-mortar. ↩

See also

  • Registry
  • Best-Mexican-In-KC-Spring-2027-Shortlist-Synthesis
Categories
  • Locally owned
  • Mexican
  • Founder Led