The Fold: Tmaz Taqueria
The taco series comes back to Ann Arbor for a Packard Street institution open until 4 a.m.
The first three entries in The Fold moved outward. Scio Township, then Ypsilanti, then Dexter. For the fourth, I came back to Ann Arbor proper. Not downtown, not the student corridor, but Packard Street — the stretch east of Platt where the strip malls get quieter and the parking gets easier. Tmaz Taqueria is at 3182 Packard St. It has been there for years. If you live on this side of town, you already know about it. If you do not, this is your introduction.
Tmaz also has a second location at 2529 Dexter Ave in Ann Arbor, but I have been eating at the Packard location, so that is what this entry covers.
The Al Pastor
I need to be careful here because The Fold already has two al pastor entries. Dos Hermanos set the bar in entry #1 with caramelized pork on a house-made tortilla. Chela's offered a more traditional version in entry #3, closer to Mexico City street style. The Tmaz al pastor is different from both, and I think it might be the best of the three.
The pork is marinated in what tastes like a blend of dried chiles, achiote, and pineapple, then cooked until the edges go dark and slightly crisp. It has more spice than the Dos Hermanos version and more depth than the Chela's take. The meat is chopped fine and served on a doubled corn tortilla with cilantro and raw onion. No pineapple chunk on top, no frills. The marinade does everything.
I asked for the green salsa on the side. It is thin, sharp, and loaded with serrano heat. Two spoonfuls turned the taco into something I kept thinking about on the drive home. The al pastor at Tmaz has 474 Yelp reviews backing it up, which is more than any other spot in this series. That kind of volume does not happen by accident.
A single taco costs $3. Buy two or more and the price drops to $2.50 each. At that rate, four tacos cost you $10. That is the cheapest full meal in The Fold.
The Barbacoa
If the al pastor is the headliner, the barbacoa is the one I keep ordering alongside it. The beef is braised and shredded, soft enough to fall apart on the tortilla but not so soft that it loses all texture. It has a warmth that comes from the slow cook and the chiles in the braise, not from hot sauce added after the fact.
This is a different animal from the Chela's birria, which is a dipping taco built around consomme. The Tmaz barbacoa is drier, more concentrated. The beef flavor is front and center. Where birria is a project (the consomme, the dipping, the mess), barbacoa at Tmaz is just a taco. Pick it up, eat it, order another one.
I tried the pollo con chipotle on my second visit. The chicken is good, smoky from the chipotle, but it does not stay with you the way the barbacoa does. The chorizo is greasy in the right way, loose and crumbly with enough paprika to stain the tortilla. Both are solid but not what I would drive across town for. The barbacoa and the al pastor are the reason to come here.
The 4 a.m. Factor
Every other entry in this series closes by 9 p.m. Dos Hermanos wraps at 8 on weeknights. MAIZ and Chela's shut down around the same hour. Tmaz is open Monday through Saturday until 4 a.m. I need to say that again. Four in the morning.
This changes the calculus. Ann Arbor is not a late-night food town. After midnight, your options narrow to pizza slices, drive-throughs, and whatever is left in your fridge. Tmaz fills a gap that nobody else in The Fold even attempts. I went on a Friday at 1:30 a.m. and the line had six people in it. The al pastor was the same quality as my Tuesday lunch visit. The tortillas were fresh. The green salsa had not been sitting out long enough to lose its edge.
A taco shop that serves good food at 2 a.m. is a different proposition than one that closes at 8. It means you do not have to choose between eating well and eating late. For a college town with 47,000 students and a bar scene that runs past midnight, Tmaz occupies territory that no other serious taco spot has claimed.
How It Compares
Four entries deep, The Fold has split into two camps. Dos Hermanos and Tmaz are traditional taquerias. Meat, tortilla, salsa, cilantro, onion. Everything cooked from scratch, no creative reinterpretations. MAIZ and Chela's are broader operations with longer menus and, in MAIZ's case, tacos that break from tradition entirely (the baked avocado).
Within that traditional camp, the comparison between Dos Hermanos and Tmaz is the tightest matchup the series has produced. Both serve al pastor that I would recommend without hesitation. Both price their tacos under $4. The Dos Hermanos tortilla is better — thicker, with more corn flavor, made in-house daily. The Tmaz al pastor marinade is better — deeper, spicier, with more complexity. The salsas are a draw. On the al pastor alone, I give a slight edge to Tmaz. That is a close call, and I would not argue with anyone who saw it the other way.
Where Tmaz pulls away is on value and accessibility. At $2.50 per taco when you buy two, it undercuts every entry in the series. The Packard Street location is inside Ann Arbor city limits, not Scio Township or Dexter or Ypsilanti. And the hours are not even in the same conversation. No other entry in The Fold is open past 9 p.m., let alone 4 a.m.
Where Tmaz Lands
Four entries in: Dos Hermanos for the tortillas, MAIZ for the ambition, Chela's for the birria, Tmaz for the al pastor and the 2 a.m. taco run.
Tmaz also serves pupusas ($3.50), tamales ($4), enchiladas, and a 3 Leches Cake that I have seen on at least half the tables I have walked past. I stuck to tacos because that is what the series demands, but the menu goes deep. Central Mexican recipes, everything cooked from scratch with natural ingredients. The kitchen is not cutting corners at those prices.
The closed-on-Sunday schedule is the one knock. Plan accordingly. But Monday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. until the small hours of the morning, Tmaz is making the case that the best al pastor in Washtenaw County has been sitting on Packard Street this whole time, waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
This is part of our ongoing series. Read the full tracker: The Fold: Best Taco in Ann Arbor.
Tmaz Taqueria is at 3182 Packard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Second location at 2529 Dexter Ave, Ann Arbor. Mon--Sat 11 a.m.--4 a.m. Closed Sunday. Tacos $3 single, $2.50 each when buying 2+.