MeetOscar.

In 2019, Oscar and Claudia Cuevas opened Cuevas Tacos out of a small food truck. They parked at 11th Street Station and Lola's in Durango, serving the kind of street tacos and burritos that get talked about.

Word spread fast. The lines got longer. People drove from out of town. Within a few years, Cuevas Tacos had become a beloved local staple — known for some of the tastiest Mexican street food in the Southwest.

But a food truck has limits. There's only so much you can serve out of a window. The menu Oscar wanted to cook — the full breakfast service, the slow-cooked broths, the sit-down experience — needed a kitchen with walls.

There's a part of Oscar's background that doesn't always come up in conversation: he spent over twenty years working in Japanese kitchens. Tonkatsu ramen. Katsu. Yakiniku. Steamed buns. The whole repertoire.

For most of his career, those two traditions stayed separate — Mexican food at home, Japanese food at work. In 2025, Oscar decided to stop choosing.

The Cuevas menu rebranded to JapaMex Fusion: tacos and ramen, side by side, made by the same hands. Not fusion as a gimmick. Fusion because it's honest. This is who Oscar actually is as a chef.

Most fusion restaurants pick one cuisine and dabble in another. Cuevas does both — fully, from scratch. The al pastor is real al pastor: marinated in adobo, served on a corn tortilla with onion and cilantro. The tonkatsu ramen is real tonkatsu ramen: built on bone broth over hours, topped with slow-cooked pork belly.

That's the whole point. We're trying to cook food worth telling your friends about.