photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Rusty Taco, pictured Jan. 18, 2022, has opened at 945 Massachusetts St. in downtown Lawrence.

All these years I’ve been dealing with rusty items the wrong way — either a few squirts of WD-40 or a can of spray paint. Instead, a margarita — or maybe a fish bowl of them — is the better strategy. At least, that’s a thought that crossed my mind after checking out Rusty Taco, the new Mexican restaurant that has opened in downtown Lawrence.

The first Rusty Taco restaurant in Kansas opened earlier this week at 10th and Massachusetts streets. Street-style tacos, of course, are the main menu item, but the drinks are a big deal there too. Or just plain big, if you choose the 60-ounce fish-bowl option. They also are largely tropical, and that isn’t by accident, the local franchise owner told me.

“We are trying to create a real island feel here,” Luke Flatin, who leads the local franchise group, said.

That includes a steady stream of fun, carefree music and a 30-seat, U-shaped island bar in the middle of the space that used to house the Jimmy’s Egg breakfast restaurant and, before that, Ingredient restaurant.

The drink menu includes a variety of frozen or on-the-rocks options of margaritas, daiquiris, piña coladas, Bahama mamas or other concoctions you might find with sand and sun.

Flatin said the restaurant hoped to stay open to 2 a.m. or later on many nights of the week to serve the late-night crowd on Massachusetts Street. Flatin said the atmosphere of Massachusetts Street was a big reason he made Lawrence one of his first places to open a Rusty Taco.

Flatin grew up about an hour away from Lawrence in the small Osage County town of Melvern. (Hey, so did I.) He said trips to Lawrence were a regular part of his routine growing up there.

“I love Massachusetts Street,” he said. “It always has been kind of a dream of mine to have a restaurant here.”

Flatin said he started working at Sonic at 19 years old, and he was with the restaurant chain when the parent company bought the Rusty Taco franchise. He became one of the first franchise owners of Rusty Taco, opening a location in Dubuque, Iowa, where he also operates Sonic Drive-Ins.

In learning a little more about the Rusty Taco franchise, I do have to tell you that my thinking was a bit flawed. The ‘Rusty’ in the name has nothing to do with rust, but rather with the first name of the company’s founder. (What can I say? Fish bowls, for some reason, flaw my thinking.)

Founder Rusty Fenton, it seemed, had a fun hobby: eating tacos. He particularly ate a lot in and around Acapulco, Mexico, where he often fished. When he and a business partner opened the first Rusty Taco in Dallas in 2010, he created the menu simply by making the favorite tacos he had eaten over the years, Flatin said.

That has resulted in a menu of about 20 kinds of tacos, all of them served on either corn or flour tortillas. Flatin said the four seafood variety tacos have been some of the more popular offerings at Rusty locations. Those include a Baja shrimp version that features grilled shrimp with a Baja sauce. There are also a couple of versions of fish tacos that feature grilled or tempura battered cod slathered in an avocado creme sauce and fixings like a cabbage slaw or pickled red onions.

But one of the real standout relishes that the restaurant makes each day is its pineapple salsa, Flatin said. He said the restaurant grills fresh pineapple and combines it with grilled jalapeños, onions, cilantro and other spices. The pineapple salsa is a big part of the signature Rusty Taco, which includes achiote pork, which also has a kick to it, Flatin said.

The menu also includes smoked brisket, fried chicken, steak and fajita chicken, and several vegetarian filling options for the tacos. Also offered are breakfast tacos with various egg, meat and cheese options.

Flatin said plans were in the works with the city to enlarge the outdoor seating area of the restaurant by creating an area on the 10th Street sidewalk. When completed, that would create about 50 outdoor seats for the restaurant by this summer.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Eric Chadwick, from left, Luke Flatin, Jessica Flatin and Reva Cummings are part of the group that have opened the new Rusty Taco location in downtown Lawrence.