Playa Baby is quietly serving some of OC's best fish tacos — from a Walmart parking lot

Just off the Beach Boulevard exit of the 22 Freeway in Westminster, you'll find a Walmart Supercenter. Make your way through the busy parking lot, and you'll spot a retired school bus parked near the entrance, painted in psychedelic purples and blues. This is Playa Baby, and they're quietly making some of the most interesting tacos in Orange County right now.

A name with two meanings

The name Playa Baby holds double significance for husband-and-wife team Amanda Rios and Red Feather — two people who came to this parking lot from very different places.

Amanda Rios and Red Feather outside their Playa Baby fish taco truck in Westminster.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The two got married in 2022 at Burning Man, on a dried lakebed known as the playa. And in Spanish, playa means beach — a nod to the region Red Feather's family is from in Nayarit, a state in west-central Mexico next to the Pacific. The state itself takes its name from Red Feather's people, the Naayeri.

Combined cultures

Red Feather grew up in the mountains of Nayarit with his grandmother after losing both his father and grandfather in a car accident. His mother, known as Chicha, had already immigrated to California and was working to send for her children. He lived in an indigenous community largely untouched by colonization — matriarchal and connected to the land. When Chicha finally sent for him, the family settled in Santa Ana, where he grew up working alongside her, selling tamales and other food from small shops — and learning to cook in the process. He eventually went to art school, became an industrial designer, and found it so unsatisfying that he walked away, instead launching a fish taco truck in 2020 under the name School Fish Taco.

Amanda is originally from Bayan, Georgia, a small town she describes as "an hour from anything" — the kind of place where food isn't casual, it's communal, and you cook for everyone who comes through the door. She dropped out of the University of Georgia to start a small catering operation from her apartment, then enrolled at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte before working her way through kitchens across the South. In 2016, she moved to California and eventually became a private chef, including cooking alongside Chef Nikki Stewart on Dave Chappelle's team — events like his 50th birthday, Summer Camp, and the Blue Note Jazz Fest in Napa.

It was during that time she crossed paths with Red Feather. She came on as a consultant to his food truck business — and never left.

For a while, she treated Playa Baby like a side hustle, balancing the truck with her work on Chappelle's team. Then she started to notice something. "I was still on the road and I was watching our numbers uptick," said Rios. So she decided to come home and focus on the business, rounding out the menu to include the lemonade program that would become one of its biggest draws.

The OG Combo at Playa Baby — three tacos and an elote on a stick.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The food

When you go, start with the OG Combo — three tacos (fish, shrimp, Mixto), elote on a stick, and a Playa Punch.

The fish is tilapia, marinated in lime before it's battered. The batter itself is seasoned and thinned out, resulting in a crisp, delicate exterior that's the opposite of the puffy cloud you'd get from classic fish and chips — citrusy and light, a technique Red Feather learned from his mother.

The elote at Playa Baby comes loaded — Cotija, chipotle drizzle, cilantro, crema.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The shrimp is more traditional than you might expect from a shrimp taco, yet still manages to stand out. Seasoned before and after, it comes out plumper and crisper, leaning closer to a classic tempura. Both tacos arrive topped with red and green cabbage slaw, crema, chipotle mayo, and Cotija cheese. The tortillas come from Ranchera Tortilleria in Garden Grove — lime, salt, corn, no preservatives — and taste handmade, holding their own against the stuffed contents. The fish itself comes from D&D Seafood in Westminster.

The elote is loaded — Cotija, chipotle drizzle, cilantro, crema — and the corn is fresh enough to pop with each bite.

The lemonade

At Playa Baby, the lemonades — Amanda calls them Buckets — are as central to the menu's identity as the tacos. Each one starts with fresh-pressed lemonade or limeade and handmade ginger syrup, then gets dressed up with fruit and herbs: Georgia Girl (peach, mint) is a nod to her own roots; Florida Boi leans blackberry and coconut; O.C. Gworl goes tropical with lychee and passionfruit.

The Playa Punch, one of Playa Baby's signature handcrafted lemonades, served with a yellow flower garnish.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The idea came together in 2023 at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago, where in-house beverage was the buzzword of the year. After seeing a woman on TikTok fund pharmacy school by selling lemonade, Amanda tracked down the man in Alabama who builds pneumatic lemon smashers and spent a month testing 50 combinations before landing on the menu they have now.

More than a fish taco

Despite Amanda's imprint on the food, she's quick to point out that this isn't a Black fish fry. In her home state of Georgia, fish fry means catfish. What she's bringing to Playa Baby is a philosophy — season everything before it hits the batter, never leave a taco unfinished, treat the food like a gift rather than a transaction.

That philosophy extends to how the business is run. The truck has spent the past year parked at this Walmart Supercenter after years of working Taco Alley in Santa Ana, a move Amanda made after finding a vendor program through a Facebook group for women food truckers. The new spot opened the truck up to people who couldn't easily get to them before — families with strollers, older customers, anyone in a wheelchair.

There's no brick-and-mortar in the plan. The goal, eventually, is to franchise the truck model — without losing what makes it work. As Amanda puts it: "I gave you everything I got in this tiny menu, so it all hits."

What Playa Baby teaches us is that good food doesn't need to rely on rigid technique or even the "right" ingredients — sometimes it just needs to be an honest expression of the people behind it and the story they're telling. That feels significant and worth the trip.