What is Mesquite Fresh Street Mex?
Mesquite Fresh Street Mex is a single walk-up window at 7345 E Shoeman Ln, in the middle of the Entertainment District, a short block east of Scottsdale Road in Old Town. It is where brothers Ahmad and Naser Alatrash, who grew up in Scottsdale, started grilling chicken and steak over mesquite wood in 2014, and it is the original of an Arizona chain that will have eleven stores when a Laveen location opens in fall 2026. The company’s own history says 2015; Phoenix New Times, which profiled the brothers in 2017, says the window opened in 2014 as Wadaa Street Tacos with a third partner, in a former office squeezed next to Bottled Blonde, El Hefe, Maya and Dakota.
The idea was Naser’s. He had worked in Old Town, knew the foot traffic, and wanted a late-night taco shop in the club district; Ahmad was 17 and working at a Little Caesars. They tore out the office and built one room with a big open window so the line could watch the cooks work the grills. The menu was two meats, chicken and steak, cooked over mesquite charcoal on grates that are raised and lowered over the fire, because mesquite burns hot and chicken takes longer than thin-cut steak. A third meat, barbacoa, has since been added. Everything else is a topping, and every topping is included.
The window serves until 3 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, which makes it the latest kitchen in the district, and it has been the default last stop for the club crowd for over a decade; New Times reported in 2017 that the following included Devin Booker of the Suns and Tyrann Mathieu of the Cardinals. It also opens at 10 a.m. with breakfast burritos until 11, and a weekday lunch here is the same tacos without the line.
It is for anyone who is hungry at 2 a.m. in Old Town, and, less obviously, for anyone who wants a $3.49 taco cooked over real wood at noon. Our verdict: the best cheap food in the Entertainment District, and the only Old Town restaurant that grew into a Valley chain without ever adding a chair.
Ordering at the window
Order tacos in threes. Street tacos are $3.49 each on the menu dated August 2026, and buying three gets rice and beans free. The meats are fire-grilled chicken, mesquite-grilled steak and barbacoa, with steak and barbacoa 99 cents extra and a mixed-meat option at the same surcharge. The steak is the one the window is known for, thin-cut and finished fast over the hottest part of the fire. Every topping is on the counter and included: fajita veggies, cheese, pico de gallo, shredded cabbage, pickled onions, cilantro and onion, fresh limes and grilled serranos, with queso blanco for $1.29 more. The five house sauces are chipotle, spicy red, mild green, guacamole and sour cream.
The bigger plates. The Killer Burrito ($12.49, with chips and salsa), the Packed Bowl ($12.49) and the Big Quesadilla ($12.49, with rice and beans) are the same meats in larger form, and a veggie version of each runs $8.99. The Loaded Potato Bowl ($11.99) is potato, queso blanco, mesquite steak, cheese, pico and sour cream and is the late-night order for people who want something heavier than a taco. A cheese quesadilla is $8.99, a bean and cheese burrito $6.99, and a Family Meal of a pound of meat with a side, four toppings and two sauces is $39.99 and feeds three or four. Breakfast burritos and tacos, with cage-free eggs, potatoes, cheese and roasted salsa, are served until 11 a.m.
Drinks. Horchata, jamaica and lemonade are $3.99, a horchata chai latte, iced horchata coffee and a dirty horchata soda are $4.99, and there are 24-ounce smoothies at $7.99, including a mangonada. No alcohol, which at 3 a.m. on Shoeman Lane is the point.
Timing. The company lists the window as open every day, 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday; some online-ordering pages cut off earlier, so after 1:30 walk up. The queue builds from 2 a.m. when the clubs on the block close and runs twenty minutes deep until about 2:45. Arrive before 2 or after 3. Weekday lunch is empty, and a Taco Tuesday deal has been advertised at this location.
Getting there and where to eat. There is no seating, no table and no restroom for customers; you eat standing on Shoeman Lane or on the curb along Indian Plaza, and the company’s own page says guests typically spend $10 to $20 a head. Park in the Old Town garages or take a rideshare, which is what the rest of the line did. For the whole after-midnight map, see late-night food in Scottsdale and our guide to Old Town nightlife.
The taco stand that became a chain without a dining room
The Alatrash brothers solved the problem that kills most small food businesses in Old Town, which is rent, by taking almost no space. New Times’ 2017 account is specific: in 2014, with their then-partner Miguel Sanchez, they set up as Wadaa Street Tacos in a former office next to the clubbiest block in Arizona, and it was, in Ahmad’s words, “a gold mine and a hit from the start.” In 2016 they bought Sanchez out, renamed the window Mr. Mesquite Taqueria, and opened a sit-down second store at 7000 E Mayo Blvd in North Scottsdale. That became the template: the Old Town window stayed a window, and every later store was a counter with seats, and later a drive-thru.
The growth was fast for two brothers in their twenties. There were seven stores by late 2020, when tacos were $2.79. In August 2021 the company renamed every store Mesquite Fresh Street Mex, a name a design studio was hired to make “more descriptive of their street Mexican concept,” and the eighth store opened on Happy Valley Road on August 28. A ninth came in April 2023 when the brothers folded Speedy Street Tacos, their 2016 stand near Sky Harbor, into the brand, and Ahmad told What Now Phoenix the company was “turning into developers,” building its own drive-thru buildings. The Laveen store, due in fall 2026, is the eleventh. The company claims New Times Best of Phoenix awards for Best Street Tacos and Best Tortillas; local coverage repeats the claim, but we could not find the award pages themselves.
The brothers also tried to grow in Old Town and learned its limits. In September 2022 their company, AR Concepts, opened Chickadees Chicken and Fries and Grindhouse Espresso Bar in the former Oasis Cafe at Camelback and Buckboard Trail, a chicken-sandwich counter open until 3 a.m. and a coffee bar open from 6. Both are listed closed on every directory we checked in 2026, and the press never reported the closing. The taco window never changed: one room, one window, the most reliable late-night line in the bars and clubs district, and the place the chain’s own site calls “where it all started.”
What the record does not say is the month the window opened; the company says 2015, New Times says 2014, and the brothers’ own 2020 In Business column says they launched “our first Mr. Mesquite Taqueria” in 2015. We give the earlier date and the discrepancy.
Honest assessment: the tacos are good rather than great, the steak better than the chicken, and after 2 a.m. the grill can fall behind the line and the tortillas suffer for it; recent delivery reviews say as much. None of that is the point. Mesquite is the one piece of the 2010s club boom that a pair of Scottsdale kids built for themselves rather than for a hospitality group, it still costs $3.49 a taco, and it is the only entry on our list of the best Mexican in Scottsdale you eat standing on a curb at 3 a.m.