El Riconcito Express brings Bingen eats to White Salmon

El Riconcito Express taco trailer, owned and operated by Bingen-White Salmon locals Jake and Diana Gilderhus, offers a Bingen favorite within walking distance for anyone in White Salmon.

“Without Ascendente being so kind as to lease us some space, we may not have been able to make this happen,” said Jake Gilderhus. “It’s a decent spot, everybody goes to Thriftway so they’ll all see us eventually.”

The new taco trailer is in its second week of business this week, and will focus more on the catering side of business in the Greater Gorge area.

“It’s pretty exciting, and pretty cool,” said Diana Gilderhus, “A lot of people are pretty excited about it.” Jake and Diana Gilderhus had owned a restaurant prior to the new food truck, but found an opportunity to change things up when Diana’s parents and owners of Bingen’s El Riconcito Express asked for help.

“We had a little taqueria in Hood River, and her parents were kind of needing help so we sold that and bought this,” noted Jake Gilderhus.

He added, “We wanted to kind of get out of Hood River anyways. Now instead of having to fight traffic across the bridge, I walk to work,”

So far the plan for El Riconcito Express is to remain in the space behind Ascendente during the week, Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and split the weekends with catering events.

“This is new, but we’ve done events before, and we’re trying to do more now, more events and more catering,” said Jake Gilderhus. Last weekend the new taqueria trailer provided food for an all-women’s motorcycle event in Glenwood.

The little red taco trailer opened its ordering-window for the first time to customers last Monday, and has been well received by the community so far.

After crunching the numbers, the new business was only five dollars short of their daily goal on the first day, explained Jake Gilderhus.

“It’s nice, and now all the people that work up here can just walk over,” said Jake Gilderhus. “They don’t have to try and go down to Bingen and find somewhere to park, they can just walk from their office.”

The majority of the food is first made at the Bingen location, such as the chicken, pork, and carnitas, but the assembly of all the ingredients is localized to the truck’s kitchen.

“We’re pretty much making everything in Bingen and slinging it back up,” explained Diana Gilderhus. “We prepare some stuff here, but like all the meats and stuff we do down there,” Jake Gilderhus added.

“What I was most excited about, was I wanted to serve the community that I live in,” Jake Gilderhus explained, “Not Hood River, where I don’t live and don’t spend much time.”