127Dinner with the Departed
Día de los Muertos murals by Tony Bryant, 2024 · signed on the wall with his name and phone number · painted from Bryant’s own idea for owner Orlando Laon at Taqueria El Mexicano Grill & Bar #9, 1420 N Valley Mills DrMURAL
A skeleton mariachi, a painted feast, and a cantina door where the serenade never ends.
Around the walls of this Valley Mills Drive taqueria, the Day of the Dead is going wonderfully. A dark-haired woman in the style of a certain Mexican painter you're thinking of shares a laid table with a calavera mariachi in his black charro suit — guitar up, grin permanent — while painted platters of tacos and botanas and frosty micheladas crowd the tablecloth between them. Nearby a catrina wears a headdress of marigolds, roses and feathers piled higher than any hat has a right to go.
The best door in West Waco is around the side: CANTINA, announced in painted letters, with painted brick crumbling away around a full-length skeleton señor mid-serenade — on the door itself, so he swings open with it. And because this is Waco, a cheerful cartoon bear throws its arms up beside the painted social-media icons: BEAR'S are welcome! The afterlife, it turns out, accommodates Baylor fans.
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