Whenever we are out doing shows or talking to people about the brand the most common questions we get is: “Why Taco Jesus; how did you come up with that name?”   We’re not sure if the actual story lives up to the hype, but this is it.  The original idea for Taco Jesus all started as part of a logo design contest in 2009 run by a website called “The Clink Room” which was a collaborative site run by a couple of guys named Casey and Jason who run a mega successful branding company called Brandiose and are major players in logo design projects behind some of your favorite minor league and major league baseball teams.

The idea of the design contest was to design a logo for an imaginary baseball team sponsored by your favorite taco shop.  Jeff Crupper the founder of Taco Jesus Hot Sauce had grown up in Texas and had a passion for tacos (and hot sauce) and a flair for the creative, so he decided to take a shot at designing a logo for the contest.  Jeff’s original taco shop idea was based on an imaginary Taco Shop called Jesus Gomez’ Taco Heaven and their sponsored team was “El Salvadores” with the logo being Jesus Gomez offering up two delicious tacos in a Christ-like pose.

Jesus Gomez – Los Salvadores Logo: The first appearance of what would eventually become Taco Jesus.

When the Taco Shop League announced their winners Jesus Gomez and El Savadores were left out on the outside looking in, but the idea of Taco Jesus never completely went away.

The character Taco Jesus first appeared with a Facebook page that many years later would evolve into the Taco Jesus Hot Sauce page you see today.  Taco Jesus managed to gather quite a following eventually making 500-600 “friends” on Facebook and we began selling Taco Jesus related products online.  Today the online shop has evolved to sell Taco Jesus Hot Sauce related products, but many of the original designs can still be found on the site.

After quite a few years of relative obscurity some friends convinced Jeff that the Taco Jesus logo was too good to sit on a shelf and that he really needed to develop it into a brand.  Since Jeff had a background in the restaurant business the first idea was to open a Taco Heaven themed restaurant or taco truck, but that concept was going to require a lot of capital  to get off the ground and he wanted something a little less risky to test the idea with and so he eventually settled on a hot sauce concept to get the business started.  After several months of testing various recipes and suppliers the first batch of Taco Jesus Hot Sauces were unveiled in early 2016, more than seven years after the original idea of Taco Jesus had been unveiled.

The brand started with five original flavors, Mexican Style Rojo, Mango Pinapple, Chipotle, Red Habanero and Ghost Pepper sauces.  The sauces have undergone tweaks and changes over the last several years and of the five original flavors only.the Mexican Style Rojo remains the same recipe as day one.  Many new flavors have been added and the brand has expanded to a line of 10 sauces and a new Bloody Mary mix all coming from humble beginnings as an imaginary logo for an imaginary taco shop.

And now you know…