Most people want to know where they’re going and how they’re going to get there. Brad Beardall was writing a travel guide when he arrived to Whitefish in January of 2020, so that basic human instinct must have been apparent to him. His plan was to ski for a winter while finishing the book, but when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he recalls, “I kind of got stuck.”
Beardall, who now owns Good Taco in Whitefish, embraced it. “This was one of the best places to be.” So he hung around and began driving for Doordash, the restaurant delivery service. That changed in the summer of 2021, however, when the restaurants in Whitefish all seemed to exit their Doordash partnerships en masse. This abrupt departure left a literal void of options in the delivery app and, in Beardall’s eyes, a space to be filled with opportunity.
Beardall admits that despite having the revelation, he wasn’t the obvious person to take advantage of it. “I’m not a cook. I’d never cooked in my life.” But his first job was in a Tex-Mex restaurant that served tacos, and while he wasn’t cooking, he was watching. “I saw how the sausage was made. I wasn’t doing it, but I was observant.” He trusted he could discover the right flavors for the tacos he wanted to create, even if he lacked the ability to prepare them — or even describe them — at the time.
He soon came upon the name for his new venture on a trip to visit his father and stepmother. Beardall wanted to provide some relief and assistance to his family because his father was in poor health, so he started helping out with meals by sharing the recipes he was developing. They were well received. His father was soon requesting tacos every night.
“He kept saying, ‘That’s a good taco,’ with a gentleness because I was doing this for him,” Beardall recalled.
Good Taco.
“Alright. Done. I didn’t have to think about it,” Beardall said.
By the spring of 2022, he had found a kitchen and put five items on Doordash. It started slow.
“I had no money to advertise. I was so broke. I was making and delivering,” he said. “I would shop, cook, deliver, go shop again with the money I made, cook again, then clock off and go Uber and make money, then shop and cook again.”
He survived on the thinnest of margins, but as summer turned to fall, he saw his sales drop and his business begin to die out. While telling an acquaintance things might be over for Good Taco, he received a tip that the VFW kitchen was newly vacant. It would mean dining as well as delivery, but without hesitation, he brought over a menu. The manager wasn’t sure, but Beardall’s perseverance paid off.
“At this point, I see the opportunity,” Beardall said. “When you see the door open, you jump through. I said, ‘No. I am your guy.’”
The VFW agreed to give Beardall a short-term lease. For six months he hid away in his new kitchen at the back of the VFW, without even putting up a sign. “Some people have a big opening and the menu isn’t dialed and people turn their backs on the place. I was learning my lessons,” he said.
He wanted to keep his mistakes small and he wanted flexibility. Saying of his menu, “They’re still works in progress. Always. I don’t have a chef’s ego. I don’t know and I don’t claim to know. If people like it, then I keep serving it. If they don’t, I take that feedback and try to make something they like.”
That ethos helped him develop his barbacoa tacos. Wanting a pork option on his menu, but unable to get less than 1,500 pounds delivered for the al pastor he envisioned, Beardall had to start somewhere else. He thought back on a pork dish his stepmother made once for a gathering. It wasn’t perfect, “but people liked it and I thought I could work with it.” So he asked for the recipe and set out to discover how he could make it work for him. ”I just did what anybody does to try and get better, just ask, ‘What’s this?’ What’s that?’ ‘What’s barbacoa?’”
Barbacoa is often thought of as a Mexican beef dish; however, it’s really just a method of slow cooking meat in an earth pit. Different cultures have their own spice blends, but there are no hard and fast rules. “It can be all different things: beef, goat, different cuts of meat.” Beardall thought it could be his pork option.
He ended up braising a pork butt and slow cooking it for 12 hours overnight, allowing the fat to reduce into the bath of salsa, chilies and other spices. After removing and shredding it, he reintroduced the fat and the flavor. It may not have been what people were expecting, but the point was to make something they liked.
“People loved it.”
He still had to come up with the toppings. The meat had some spice to it, so he decided to mellow it with a creamy red and green cabbage slaw. When completed, the slaw was an almost pastel color of purple. His house cheese was cotija and he wanted to top it with fresh cilantro, but felt it needed something more. He asked himself, “Okay, what else?” All at once he had a vision. “Somehow, I think along the way, I’ve seen a niece or a nephew and they’re just red fingers and Taki stains on their shirt,” he said, describing the chili-powder-seasoned tortilla chip. “What if you smashed up some Takis and put them on top?” He decided to try it.
On this soft bed of dark red barbacoa, he layered the pastel purple slaw, the electric red Takis, white cotija, and bright green cilantro. It was all piled in a small corn tortilla with a lime wedge neatly placed on the side. He looked at it in awe. “Where’d that come from? That is beautiful. I had no idea that was going to happen.”
So, he had his pork solution. But it was always just a work in progress. He now sells enough pork for that big order. It allowed him to include al pastor and change the barbacoa to beef. The menu is still evolving and always changing, but the tacos are just as delicious and modern and beautiful as ever. And it’s all still tucked away in the back of the VFW.
Turns out, you don’t need to know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there. Especially if all you’re after is a good taco.