Detroit: Midtown’s Shell Shock’d Tacos
In May of 2021, Danielle “Margo Moon” Bigham and Cedrick Andrews founded the pop-up taco shop called Shell Shock’d Tacos. One of the places they would do a pop-up at is the Bagley Central Bar at 2545 Bagley Street in Detroit’s Southwest neighborhood. (Bagley Central Bar has closed, and now the space is used as a “pop-up bar space” and is home to the ever so popular pop-up bar Blitzen’s On Bagley, during the holiday season.) They started with a Blackstone grill, a couple tables, some coolers and a tent serving up Detroit-style, Latina Inspired street food.
Cedrick and Margo Moon worked hard doing pop-up events around town trying to get their name out there. You know what they say . . . if you build it they will come. And come they did. In the past few years they have built quite the following with 1,800 followers on Facebook, 2,200 followers on TicTok, and over 24,000 followers on Instagram. Hard work and persistence pays off. They have also competed in the Taco Showdown held at Detroit’s Eastern Market and won in 2022 and came in 2nd in 2023.
In 2022, they opened their brick and mortar location in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood, at 418 W Willis. They are right down the street from Cobb’s Corner, where they used to do some of their pop-ups. At first we thought this was a place that had been there for more than a few years, since it was the home of Alley Taco from 2014 to 2020 which, unfortunately, didn’t survive the pandemic. Cedrick and Mango Moon thought this would be the perfect location for their permanent location.
It’s no surprise Midtown has become quite the place for all varieties of new places to open up joining the already established places that have been there for years.
We didn’t know what to expect walking into Shell Shock’d. All we knew was it was tacos. The menu is not huge. It consists of tacos with choice of chicken, beef or birria, and veggie. Specialty items of elote, elote chicken wings, Krunchwrap, smacho (their version of nachos) and an eggroll (birria or chicken)
We ordered the Chicken Birria taco, 2 regular birria Dorm Room Tacos and a Birria Eggroll.
The birria was off the charts delicious. At $3 each the Dorm Room Tacos are a great value, loaded with fillings and cooked to a perfect crispness to where they didn’t break apart when eating them. The Eggroll was a meal in itself, a lot bigger than we imagined it, the birria was so rich and the consume full of flavor. The chicken Birria was also very good and it was served with a queso cheese sauce that was the perfect complement. This is a defiantly a must to stop at now when we are in the area.
Here are some pictures of some of their other food, that we found on social media:
Like previously mentioned Detroit’s Midtown is a hotbed for restaurant, bars, coffee shops and even specialty markets. Definitely a post for another day, but if you are in the area, check out Seasons Market on 2nd, just 2 blocks from Shell Shock’d, where you can grab a coffee or maybe a loaf of fresh baked bread. It’s quite an adorable little market.
Shell Shock’d Tacos is open Monday through Saturday at 11AM and open till 10 PM Monday-Thursday and 2AM on Friday and Saturday. They are closed on Sundays.
Until next time . . . live well, eat well and enjoy life!
-Keith & Teresa Becker
