Authentic street tacos Cold drinks Good music Good people

El Patio at Doc's Taco Shop - a white clapboard building with hand-lettered El Patio signage, a marquee light and a wooden pergola over the deck

Our story

A little piece of Mexicoin East Texas.

Liberty City, Texas  ·  2020 – 2025

A small weekend taqueria on the access road, built on one idea: cook the street food of Mexico properly, and give people somewhere worth sitting down.

Opened
2020
Where
Liberty City, Texas
Meats
Pollo · Al pastor · Bistek
Out back
El Patio
Closed
19 July 2025
“Order 4 or more and get a free smile!”
Printed on the menu board, 2023

The shop

Doc’s Taco Shop opened in Liberty City in 2020 — a small weekend eatery on the access road, just down from Dairy Queen past Hog Eye Self Storage. It ran for close to five years.

The room was full of antique memorabilia and the atmosphere was deliberately unhurried. Out back was El Patio, a covered deck under string lights where bands played most weekends, which meant the place regularly served groups rather than couples.

The food stayed narrow on purpose. Three meats — pollo, al pastor and bistek — ran across the entire board, from the street tacos to the torta, the quesadillas and the burrito. Running one chicken, one pork and one beef across a whole menu is a small-kitchen discipline, and it is why a short board covered so much ground.

Doc’s closed permanently on 19 July 2025. What follows is a record of what it served, read from the shop’s own menu board.

Hands slicing beef into cubes on a wooden board in the kitchen
Three open street tacos topped with shredded cabbage and cilantro, filled with al pastor, bistek and pollo

The taco

Five things, and nothing else.

The build never changed in five years.

  1. 01Corn tortillaSmall, soft, and the reason the rest of it works.
  2. 02Choice of meatOne per taco — pollo, al pastor or bistek. Never a mixture.
  3. 03Diced onionRaw and fine, for sharpness against the fat.
  4. 04CilantroChopped, generously.
  5. 05CabbageThe local wrinkle. Common across northern Mexico and the Texas border, and it holds its crunch where lettuce wilts.
Two Doc's Taco Shop tacos on a paper plate topped with cabbage, cilantro and sliced avocado
Street tacos as Doc’s served them — corn tortillas, cabbage, cilantro and sliced avocado.

Five years

2020

Doc’s opens on the access road in Liberty City, serving weekends only.

2023

The menu board photographed here is printed — the most complete surviving record of what the shop served.

2025

Doc’s closes permanently on 19 July, after close to five years.

For the record

The board, as it was printed.

209 N. Access Rd, Kilgore, Texas

Doc’s stood in Liberty City, just down from Dairy Queen past Hog Eye Self Storage. It closed on 19 July 2025 and is not trading.

The August 2023 menu board survives in full, transcribed and dated so the prices on it are never mistaken for current ones.

Doc's Taco Shop menu, page one: seasonal items, the choice of pollo, al pastor and bistek, and dishes including street tacos, birria tacos, suegrita, torta, chalupa, the gringo, quesadillas, burritos and Keith's salad Doc's Taco Shop menu, page two: extras including elote and grilled veggies, drinks including horchata, wine-a-rita and cerveza, plus opening hours and contact details
Menu board, August 2023 — both pages