Carnitas El Guero
Gustavo Reyes opened this counter in the Texaco on Stassney in December 2016 with two hundred dollars, and he will tell you the whole recipe: pork lard, meat, garlic, salt, and a little bit of sugar.1 Matthew Odam ranks it third of the twenty best tacos in Austin.2
Why go
Reyes puts pork butt, ribs, belly, stomach and skin into a cazo of lard in the middle of the kitchen, which Raphael Brion compares to French confit, and the skin is an essential part of what makes for the ineffable and gelatinous mouthfeel.
1 Odam watched the same thing from the other side of the counter: The pig is heated in a massive vat behind the counter and then cooked to a crispy finish. The cooks will grab shoulder and chop it in front of you.
2 Reyes's own reason for starting, to Texas Monthly's taco editor: I couldn't find a single good taco, so I decided to serve the very best taco.
3 The tortillas are nixtamalized, brought in from Houston, and warmed on the flat top in lard. The onions come pickled with habanero and oregano.1
Order this / avoid
- Surtido.
The default and best way to order the carnitas here is 'surtido,' and you'll get a mix of everything, chopped to order.
1 - By the pound with all the fixings, which is what most people at this counter buy.1
- The doradita, a small crisp fried tortilla pocket filled with the meats that settle at the bottom of the pot, which the kitchen calls achicalada.1
- Chicharrones, which Odam calls the best in the city, and a mix with stomach, belly and pickled cuerito if you want the juicy version.2
- Both salsas. The red is chile morita, a smoked jalapeno, deep and smoky; the green is tomatillo and habanero, brighter and hotter.1
- Avoid ordering anything but pork. Brion's rule, written about the bigger menu at the other door:
The tacos are perfectly fine, but if you're at a place called Carnitas El Güero, you should be getting the carnitas.
1
What locals & experts say
- Matthew Odam put it third on the Statesman's twenty best tacos in Austin in May 2025, opening on the pork:
Pig perfection.
2 - Jose R. Ralat, Texas Monthly's taco editor, made it his Austin carnitas recommendation:
If you're looking for excellent carnitas in Austin, try Carnitas El Güero, which began in 2017 as a gas-station cash-only counter.
3 - Raphael Brion, The Infatuation Austin, 3 October 2022, 8.4 out of 10:
They focus and only do carnitas.
He had written the longer Chronicle piece on the same kitchen the year before.4
Good to know
- Which one: several doors trade under this name, on the South IH 35 frontage road at Stassney, on North Lamar and on Cameron Road, and Reyes has since taken the business to San Antonio. This page is the South Austin gas-station counter.43
- The North Lamar room is a different proposition, with a full kitchen, pozole built on a pig's head with guajillo and ancho, cantaritos in clay pots, menudo, beer and tequila, and hours that run late. That menu belongs to the other door.12
- Expect a queue at the weekend, through the aisles of the gas station.1
- The only prices anybody has published are from November 2021, when the personal combo with a half pound was US$12.99 and a pound with all the fixings was US$19.99.1
- Austin Public Health holds no inspection under this business's own name at this address, so the city's scores cannot tell you about this counter.5
Verdict
should-visit — Buy a pound and eat it somewhere else, because the counter is a gas station and the food is not. Ask for half lean and half fatty, and let the counter settle the ratio. Take the skin if you have never had it. Skip this door if you wanted a taqueria with a menu, since there is one dish and three shapes of it.