Mike and Christal Bramson and designer Mike Juliano, the team behind Rebel Taco, have been keeping themselves pretty busy. What started off as a food truck in Arlington in 2018 led to the launch of a street taco stall in Philadelphia’s Bourse Food Hall. And earlier this month, despite the pandemic, the trio opened their first brick-and-mortar Rebel Taco location on U Street.
The Rebel Taco concept came from “our love for tacos and travel,” Christal Bramson says, and the storefront builds on what she calls their “passion for curating spaces and hospitality.” This permanent storefront opens in the former home of sports bar The Prospect, where Mike Bramson was a partner. (Mike Bramson’s Social Restaurant Group is also behind Provision No. 14 on 14th Street, The Lot in Clarendon, and La Vie, the Wharf restaurant that drew Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema’s ire in 2018.)
Bramson tapped into her roots to expand the menu for the restaurant. “I wanted to include elements from both my Chinese and my Jamaican heritage,” Bramson says, like the new Peking Duck taco—a riff on traditional bao, with crispy duck, cucumber, spring onions, and plum sauce. To pay homage to the Jamaican side of her family, she developed a jerk chicken taco with mango salsa.
There are new vegetarian tacos, too, including the smoked cauliflower and pistachio combination dubbed Cauli Love; and a blend of portabella mushrooms, cheese, sweet peppers, avocado crema, and shoestring plantains, aka Wild Thing.
Rebel Taco fans will recognize some of the taco lineup, with classics like carnitas and al pastor as well as the Buffalo Soldier, a chicken taco featuring a house-made buffalo sauce, and the Catch Me If You Can, the restaurant’s take on fish and chips with crispy cod and shoestring fries. Tacos run $3.50-$4.50 a piece and come in a house-made corn tortilla or lettuce wrap.
Rebel Taco is also planning to offer a brunch menu and a rotating lineup of “tacos of the month,” which will feature flavors inspired by the couple’s travels around the world.
That creative vibe carries over into the building’s presence. It’s hard to miss the new location: A striking Día de Muertos-inspired mural towers over the intersection of 13th and U Streets NW and colorful stools surround large umbrellas in the outdoor seating area. The dimly lit interior houses more paintings which, like the mural, are all the work of D.C.-area-based artists Mike Pacheco and Rodrigo Pradel. “It’s important that we support local artists,” Bramson says.
Inside, the exposed brick wall stairwell is vibrant with a large collection of fluorescent decor. At the top of the stairwell, a green wall — literally, a wall of greenery — is accented by a bright pink halo that spells out: “I see beautiful things around you.” (“This is where all the Instagram action happens,” Bramson says.) The second floor will eventually house a tequila library — effectively a large display of tequilas from across the world — and bar that’s slated to open in early fall.
Though the tequila collection isn’t quite ready yet, it’s in no short supply at the bar downstairs, where the restaurant is serving five different fruit-forward margaritas for $10 a pop, or $30 a pitcher. The team makes their own watermelon agua fresca, too.
While opening during the pandemic certainly wasn’t part of the original plan, the restaurant is surprisingly well-suited to satisfy the new normal of dining out, Bramson says. The sprawling 1,600-square-foot two-story space comes with a 600-square-foot outdoor dining area, which makes for relatively easy social distancing. “We always planned on having a large takeout component,” Bramson says, referencing the “pick-up” and “order” signs above the windows on the first floor.
“All we can do is adapt,” Bramson says. The pandemic delayed their opening plans by five months. “It was disheartening to open with such limitations on guests, seats, and the exclusion of the bar; but we realized there is no ideal time to open given the current circumstances.” Diners scan a QR code to order food and pay, and each QR code is linked directly to a table number.
Despite the challenges, Bramson notes that they’ve had plenty of local support thus far — and have no plans of slowing down. A second location at 5th and K Streets NW,is expected to open in the spring, Bramson says, with a “nice-size patio, mezzanine, and lots of new murals and graffiti art.” And, of course, plenty of tacos.
Rebel Taco is located at 1214 U Street NW; open 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 5 p.m.-11:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 3 p.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.
