The Naco Taco restaurant closes Nov. 1 at its current Cambridge location, losing its patio as it consolidates with its sister restaurant, The Smoot Standard, owners said Friday.
The Mexican restaurant gets “a proper sendoff on Halloween night,” owners said.
The Smoot Standard cafe is nearly next door at 313 Massachusetts Ave., The Port. (There is one storefront between them.) “You can expect the tacos and Mexican food you know and love for dinner, while Smoot will continue to serve breakfast, lunch and cafe offerings daily,” owners Alex Tannenbaum and Yared Lacey said.
As of November, The Smoot Standard is open daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., goes dark for an hour and reopens at 4 p.m. with the Naco Taco menu, serving until 10 p.m. The Naco Taco truck will also continue to serve around the city and state, they said.
Naco Taco opened 11 years ago – with a little controversy over its name, which some people considered a slur but Tannenbaum took to mean “non-conformist” in Spanish. The restaurant weathered the storm, and the little restaurant group opened Lily P’s in Kendall Square in 2022 and Smoot in 2024, on the site of a former Darwin’s Ltd. cafe.
Lily P’s preceded Naco Taco in closing, with the chicken and oysters joint shutting its doors in June 2025.
Live music and bar Thursday, Friday, and Saturday starting at 10PM.
As Naco Taco also prepared to go dark, Tannenbaum and Lacey expressed gratitude to customers in a morning email. “Thank you so much to everyone who joined us at our flagship location over the years. We are grateful that we got to be a small part of what makes Central Square so special,” they said.
In other restaurant news: Saus at Bow Market closes in December, marking the end of 15 years for a vegetarian eatery famed for poutine in Boston as well as Somerville, according to Whatnow.
