The Fox and his dogs

Teenagers from Estancia High School flock to Taco Dawg’s blue and chrome lunch truck, which is parked outside an office building near the school each Friday at lunch time, to buy hot dogs and tacos slathered with toppings like gochujang sauce and French fried onions.

The brainchild of 30-year-old Costa Mesa entrepreneur James Foxall, or “Fox” as his friends call him, Taco Dawg is gaining a following among high school students at lunch hour, as well as late-night bargoers and office workers looking to grab lunch on the go.

When his taco truck rolls from one roadside spot to another, Foxall sends out messages via Twitter. He hopes to have two or three Taco Dawg trucks roaming the streets of Costa Mesa in search of hungry customers in another year.

“It’s really good food for low prices — I’m here every Friday,” said 18-year-old Estancia senior Flora Cotto, who visited the Taco Dawg truck with a gaggle of her friends Friday.

She ordered the Texan, a Southwestern-style taco covered in barbecue sauce, lettuce, bacon, cheese and French fried onions.

At $3 and $4 per menu item, Taco Dawg’s filling fare is easy on a teenager’s wallet.

The mobile restaurant’s eclectic menu includes items like Korean tacos slathered in kim chee salad and its signature Taco Dawg, a hot dog with taco meat, cheese, pico de gallo, lettuce and sour cream. There’s decadent side items too, like fried macaroni and cheese and chili cheese fries.

Foxall got his friend Todd Mosher, a classically trained chef, to develop the menu.

“I wanted the menu to be as appealing at 2 p.m. as it is at 2 a.m., with things that are just as good to people working in an office as people coming out of a bar,” Foxall said.

Foxall got the idea for the restaurant from his friend and former roommate Adam Deermount’s dog, a chocolate Lab named Shadow.

As a puppy, the dog would try and snap up Foxall’s food from the table.

“Stay away from my taco, dog,” Foxall shouted at the pup one day while it was sniffing at his lunch.

“He said to me ‘one day I’m going to open a restaurant called ‘Taco Dawg.’ That’s a great name,” Deermount said.

Now, Deermount is vice president of the Taco Dawg company.

Foxall worked in the mortgage industry for a while before it went belly up, and then he went to work mentoring local high school kids through the Costa Mesa nonprofit group Choosing Balance.

Now he’s working up to 16 hours a day to get Taco Dawg off the ground, doing everything from dousing the French fries in chili to filling out expense spread sheets.

He opened the restaurant on Halloween night, setting up outside the bars on Newport Boulevard.

“We’ve started to have repeat customers, and that’s been really rewarding to have people know us already,” he said.

Taco Dawg

 Taco Dawg sets up shop outside the bars on Newport Boulevard during the evenings on weekends.

 You can also get updates where Taco Dawg is at during the day at twitter.com/thetacodawg.

 Visit www.tacodawg.com for more information.