Taco Party released a new Colorado Mesa University Taco, on Thursday, Aug. 15. The first 50 people to come in and try the new taco received their taco for free.

Owner of both Bin 707 Foodbar and Taco Party, Josh Niernberg, collaborated with 437CO Art Gallery to develop a taco series that is inspired by art created by CMU students. During the first Friday of each month, Taco Party will install a piece through the 437CO Art Gallery to display, as an extension of the gallery. Then, Taco Party will release a new taco inspired by the new extended art. That taco will be available to try as long as the art piece stays on display in Taco Party. 

“To launch, we did a smoked brisket taco,” Niernberg said. “We tried to play into the colors of The Dash bus, so with the blue smoke and the pink colors of the beef, and to use the inspiration of The Dash bus represents kind of a three-way partnership.”

Taco Party itself is a local restaurant that prides itself on creating unique cuisines that are custom to the area, using fresh ingredients with historical and cultural ties to the Western Slope. Featured on their menu are Taco Party Guacamole, Grilled Olathe Sweet Sweet Corn, Mushroom Confit Tacos with Arugula/Miso Puree, Calabacitas Tacos with Palisade Peaches and Al Pastor Taco with Green Chile (pictured). Even their soft serve is Grand Valley inspired, with Olathe sweet corn. The menu changes every week to both ensure fresh ingredients satisfy the seasonal culinary trends. 

“For instance, most of our tacos are based on a blue corn tortilla. The technique is called nixtamal, when you take corn and you treat the corn so the exoskeleton of the corn breaks down and you press that into a tortilla. It’s traditional in Mexico, but the technique is not widely used anymore because the shelf life is so short. So what we do is we sourced Colorado corn, which happens to be a blue corn, and we use the traditional technique with Colorado ingredients,” Niernberg said. 

Creating these tacos from interpretation and inspiration of art promotes the art and culture of CMU within the greater Grand Junction community and showcases the culinary arts represented by Taco Party. The next CMU taco and art installation will be Friday. Sept. 6.