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Techno Taco Tuesday returns to full strength at Downtown Las Vegas’ La Mona Rosa

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Shdw & Obscure Shape at TTT
Bright Light Digital Art / Courtesy

After nearly ten years of underground dance parties at occasionally unorthodox venues, Techno Taco Tuesday has come to be defined by its perseverance almost as much as an ever-changing spectrum of electronic music.

And then there are the tacos, which have returned, delightfully, to be a prominent piece of the party puzzle.

tuna ceviche

tuna ceviche

The weekly techno gathering that regularly brings international artists to edgy and intimate Vegas spots found its new home on Valentine’s Day at the new Downtown restaurant La Mona Rosa. It’s a great fit for many reasons, not the least of which being Corner Bar Management’s operational supervision, as the company that dominates Fremont East nightlife has long provided TTT with a cool venue.

Also, co-founder and MNTRA Entertainment chief Tino Gomez has been friends with La Mona Rosa co-executive chef Daniel Arias for years. “It’s full-circle,” Gomez says. “It’s super cool to see your friends who had this passion and now they’re actually making it their business. And more than anything, we’re super excited to have really great tacos again.”

Gomez and Lance Le Rok launched TTT in 2014 at Tacos & Beer on Paradise Road, a restaurant and bar that was big enough and had the right late-night social atmosphere for the DJ-focused event. Gomez and his partner Oscar Molina opened up their own venue, Juicy Beets, and moved TTT there from 2017 to 2019, then the party jumped around Downtown with stops at Artifice and Therapy.

No matter the destination, it maintained its reputation for bringing rare international and underground artists to Las Vegas, DJs you wouldn’t find spinning at megaclubs on the Boulevard.

Gomez says he doesn’t consider TTT to be a pioneering force in off-Strip nightlife, but clearly, it is. And his team was promoting music and similar events years before this one came to be.

“We have made a huge push in the last decade and a half in Las Vegas, and [Techno Taco Tuesday] has always been pushing electronic music, techno and tech-house and house, more than anything,” he says. “I think because of those earlier events and Techno Taco Tuesday, we have more promoters in Vegas, more groups that are bringing a little different kind of sound, and the scene is growing. It’s great.

“And a lot of the people that used to go to my events in the early days are promoters or DJs now. We might have 30 DJs that became DJs because of Techno Taco Tuesday. We became a platform for a lot of kids in the city to have a place to play and express their music.”

Cockfight cocktail

Cockfight cocktail

During the pandemic, MNTRA was planning to partner with Corner Bar to launch TTT at Lucky Day on Fremont, and that happened, but while the venue was taking shape, the event took up a temporary residency at the larger Discopussy. When the smaller bar on the same block did open, it didn’t have a kitchen, so the taco element had to come from food trucks.

Once Corner Bar took possession of the former La Comida restaurant space and started making plans for La Mona Rosa, the idea was in place. “A lot of our [regulars] are super excited about the fact that tacos are back, and it’s a bigger place,” Gomez says. “At Lucky Day, sometimes you had to fight through that crowd. People feel like it’s back to how it started, a great restaurant with a soundsystem, a great bar, back to its roots.”

The February 14 opener brought Spanish house DJ Wally Lopez to the booth, then local duo Spacebyrdz took over the following week. German producer Bloody Mary, who holds a residency at Berlin’s legendary Tresor nightclub, raises the stakes this week.

And TTT is anchoring a growing partnership between the promoter and operator. MNTRA is bringing tech-house star Bruno Furlan to Discopussy on February 25, with more event announcements coming soon.

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Tags: Nightlife
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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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