The Best Tacos in Columbia, TN

Columbia, Tennessee, has lots of delicious food, including tacos. Whether you’re looking for a fast food place or a great dine-in restaurant, you can find plenty of great options in the area. Here are some of the best places for tacos near Columbia.

Victor’s Taco Shop

This local chain has locations in Columbia, Bellevue, Knoxville, and Cookeville, and the owner runs it with his sons. They have a wide selection of inexpensive soft tacos. The chicken tacos come with marinated grilled chicken, guacamole, and pico de gallo, and the fish tacos have delicious deep-fried battered flounder filets, cabbage, pico de gallo, and secret sauce. You can also choose shrimp tacos with seasoned grilled shrimp, pulled pork tacos, carne asada tacos with marinated steak strips, or marinated and seasoned grilled pork strips.

Crispy tacos with shredded or ground beef, tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese are available as well. There’s also a veggie taco with beans, rice, guacamole, sour cream, lettuce, pico de gallo, and cheese. Combo plates include rice, beans, and a drink with two tacos, a taco and a tostada, or five rolled tacos. Taco salads come in a fried flour tortilla bowl with lettuce, rice, sour cream, guacamole, tomatoes, and cheese. You can add beans, beef, chicken, carne asada, or shrimp. Victor’s Taco Shop is open every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Don Pepe’s Mexican Grill

Image via Flickr by Karl-Martin Skontorp |CC BY 2.0

Don Pepe’s Mexican Grill is an authentic, full-service Mexican restaurant with a bar, an outdoor patio, carryout, and catering. A private room is available for up to 35 guests, and they host regular trivia nights. You can get soft or hard tacos with chicken, beef, pulled beef, shrimp, fish, pulled pork carnitas, or steak. The Tacos al Pastor includes three double corn tortilla tacos with marinated pork shoulder, cilantro, and onion. With the Tacos Autenticos Don Pepe, you’ll get four tacos with double tortillas, chorizo, carne asada, grilled chicken, carnitas, cilantro, onion, avocado, and lime.

The taco salad is a flour tortilla bowl with melted cheese sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and cheese. It also has ground beef, shredded chicken, grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, or grilled steak. The fajita taco salad comes with pico de gallo, sautéed onions, bell peppers, and guacamole as well, and the vegetarian fajita taco salad has onions, bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, cheese sauce, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, and sour cream.

If you’re not sure what dish to choose, try the Don Pepe’s Dinner with a chalupa, a taco, a tamale, an enchilada, chile relleno, rice, and beans. For dessert, you can enjoy traditional Mexican flan, fried ice cream, fried wrapped bananas, sopapillas or churros with ice cream, or a chocolate chimichanga. Don Pepe’s Mexican Grill is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and closes at 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Pancho’s Place

Pancho’s Place Mexican Restaurant is family-friendly and serves fresh, authentic Mexican food. It has locations in Columbia, Franklin, and Spring Hill, and it opened in 1998. For lunch, try a hard taco with lettuce, cheese, and shredded chicken, ground beef, shredded beef, grilled chicken, grilled steak, or shrimp. The Shrimp Tacos Especial comes with three soft tortillas stuffed with grilled shrimp, special sauce, pico de gallo, cabbage, lime, and rice or French fries. With the Fish Tacos Especial, you’ll get grilled Mahi Mahi instead of shrimp.

There’s also a chicken or ground beef taco salad and a chicken, shrimp, or steak taco salad fajita. The vegetarian taco salad has onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole.

Dessert options include fried churros filled with caramel and covered with cinnamon, sugar, and a scoop of ice cream. You can also get flan, fried ice cream, or xangos, a creamy cheesecake with a fried tortilla crust topped with cinnamon, sugar, and ice cream. Pancho’s Place is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays. It closes at 10:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and at 9 p.m. on Sundays.

La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant

.La Hacienda is a family-run business that opened in 1991. This place has a great taco salad with a crispy flour tortilla bowl, cheese dip, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, and cheese. It comes with chicken, ground beef, chicken fajitas, or steak fajitas. There’s also a vegetarian version with sautéed onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, bell peppers, zucchini, broccoli, guacamole, lettuce, and sour cream.

They offer a variety of flour or corn soft tacos. The Tacos Tarascos come with three steak and bacon tacos, cilantro, onions, beans, and pico de gallo. With the Tacos al Carbon, you’ll get charbroiled steak or chicken tacos with cheese sauce, beans, pico de gallo, and guacamole. The BLT Tacos have shrimp, bacon, cabbage, Mexican rice, and mango salad, and the Tacos de Carnitas come with pork carnitas cooked in green tomatillo sauce, rice, beans, and pico de gallo.

The veggie tacos have a variety of sauteed vegetables with lettuce, cheese, rice, and beans. You can also choose Chorzi Tacos with Chorizo or Mexican sausage, cilantro, onions, Mexican rice, beans, and pico de gallo or Tacos al Pastor with marinated pork, pineapple, onions, cilantro, Mexican rice, beans, and pico de gallo. With the Tacos de Pollo al Chipotle, you’ll get grilled chicken tacos with a special chipotle sauce, rice, and a salad. 

You can visit Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., or Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Catering is available, and this restaurant can set up a taco bar so your guests can make their own tacos. There’s also a salsa bar and great frozen margaritas.

These are just some of the best taco places in the area, and with all these options, you can always try something new. What’s your favorite taco dish, and what restaurant near Columbia makes it? Contact us at Stan McNabb Chevrolet of Columbia and let us know what you think.