‘We treat everybody like family’: Fully Loaded Tacos focuses on flavor and fresh ingredients

As the afternoon light filters through the windows of the new Mexican restaurant just behind Johnstone Center, the smell of simmering spices drifts into the seating area. A bowl of oranges sits on the check-out counter with a note that reads: “Please Grab Some! Enjoy.” A customer takes one, thanking the establishment’s co-owner Elizabeth Valenzuela.

“I want to be known as that little restaurant in the corner of somewhere that is just super homey,” Valenzuela said after the customer left. “I know every little town has one, where it's like the hole in the wall, but it's just so good, it's so friendly.”

Located on College Street, Fully Loaded Tacos is owned by fiancées Kirk Cardoso and Valenzuela, who met in California in 2018. The pair moved to Montana in 2019 with their first daughter, who was two months old at the time. 

“When we met, we knew we didn't want to stay in California. I initially thought Texas. When he was like, ‘What about Montana?’ I was like, ‘What's Montana?’” Valenzuela said. 

Cardoso explained that he fell in love with the Madison Valley while helping a friend move there in 2014. 

“It was springtime, everything was beautiful and water was flowing everywhere,” he said. “Being from California, the land of drought — I'm an Aquarius. She's an Aquarius. Water is flowing through us, and I like seeing the moving water.”

Three years after moving to Montana, the pair started Fully Loaded Tacos in Ennis. Cardoso sold his home in California to help Valenzuela pursue her passion of opening a restaurant, she said. 

According to Cardoso, once the food trailer opened, it was an instant hit. 

“We noticed that the food is bland in a lot of places out here, and her food's always been really flavorful, and she's like, ‘Why don't we do this?’ That's how we got started,” Cardoso said. “And people really enjoyed the real, authentic flavor.”

Now the parents of four young children, Cardoso and Valenzuela leased the Bozeman location in March 2025 and renovated the space before opening in October. 

“The idea of having 17,000 students across the street was appealing. If we can just get a small fraction of that a day, I think we'd be golden,” he said. 

Cardoso said that while the restaurant had been popular in Ennis, changing economic conditions there prompted the move to Bozeman. However, on Feb. 23, the food trailer was reopened in Ennis after being closed since September, allowing them to serve customers in both communities.

According to Cardoso, the lengths they go to source their ingredients sets their business apart. Their tortillas and torta bread are from a family-run bakery in California, requiring lengthy drives every few months to stock up, according to him.

“We'll either meet [Valenzuela’s] parents in Nevada somewhere, or I'll drive all the way to California and pick up the tortillas. We try to keep them as authentic as possible,” Cardoso said, adding that they also try to score the freshest produce they can during these trips.

“We're not relying on what the local distributors have. We're sourcing it ourselves, and I think you can taste that in our food.”

Cooking has always been a part of Valenzuela’s life. She grew up going to work with her mother at her aunt’s restaurant and later helped with her aunt’s food trucks.

“I practically grew up cooking,” she said. “I would always make dinner after I got home from school for the family.”

Valenzuela said she cooks each dish the way she would want it prepared for herself and loves seeing how customers respond to her food. “I like it when you give them their plate and they're like, ‘Oh, wow, this is nice.’ Or, ‘Oh, this is good,’” she said.

Valenzuela — who is currently serving as her friend’s surrogate — said her love for giving to others shapes the way customers are treated.

“If there's someone that comes in and, you know, we can sense that they're on a budget, I always throw in an extra taco. I'll upgrade their kid’s burrito,” she said. “[Cardoso] will come in and go, ‘Hey, this guy only had enough money for two tacos, but give him three.’

“It’s a family environment. We treat everybody like family,” she said. 

Cardoso said that the pair appreciates their loyal customers, both in Ennis and now in Bozeman. “We've only been open since October, and the amount of five-star reviews — I mean, we're surpassing places here that have been open longer,” he said. 

“We want to offer what we're used to, and that's good quality, good flavor.”

Fully Loaded Tacos is located at 815 W College St, Suite A. To learn more, visit https://tinyurl.com/2efykdcr.