Catering van theft brings restaurant community out to support local taqueria

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Restaurant owners step in to help after another shop owner’s catering van, with thousands of dollars of equipment, is stolen. The owner said the experience has shown him what true aloha is.

Reggie Ballesteros owns Tight Tacos, a small taqueria in Kaimuki.

To help make ends meet, he also caters for events. But the night before Cinco De Mayo, his business took a big hit when his catering van was stolen.

“I came home super late that night, it was like 11:30 p.m. and by the time I went to work the next day for Cinco de Mayo at 5 a.m., it was just gone,” Ballesteros said. “I just, like, oh my gosh. Not right now, not on Cinco de Mayo! It’s like the biggest day for taqueria.”

Police did find his van days later. He said the thieves popped the door locks and then once they got in they messed with the ignition to get it started.

“It was completely gutted. They took everything,” he said.

According to Ballesteros, he had about $10,000 worth of supplies in the van.

“All my catering grills, Mexican grills, planchas, comals, like stuff you can only find in Mexico,” he explained. “Stuff I’d been working on for nine years. It’s gone.”

To make matters worse, he had a huge catering event coming up.

Not knowing what else to do, he posted about it on social media. That’s when he got a call from a taqueria in Kalihi.

“La Marea, she was one of the first ones,” he explained. “She was like, ‘Hey, I have my little plancha. It has La Marea all over it, but you want to use it for the event, go for it.’ I thought about it and then Danny from Onda Pasta reached out to me.”

Danny Kaaialii, owns Onda Pasta in Kaimuki, just a few blocks from Tight Taco.

“I recently had a taco place in Chinatown that we closed in March,” Kaaialii explained. “I had the same plancha cart that he was using and I told him that he can use ours.”

Ballesteros took Kaaialii up on his offer. And he was able to do the event.

He said he is forever grateful.

“The community helped out big time,” he said. “Big time.”

Kaaialii said he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“A lot of times as a small business owner you feel like you’re on an island. But you’re not,” Kaaialii explained. “I have a business here. And when my kids want tacos, we go to Tight Tacos. So it was an easy opportunity to just help out. We’re all people you know.”