Viral DC-Area Food Truck Flavor Hive Has It in the Bag

If you spend a lot of time on TikTok, perhaps you’ve encountered the viral “walking taco” made by the local food truck Flavor Hive. Customers arrive with their own bag of chips—generally, a massive sack of Doritos or some other brand. They pass it over to an employee, who makes two quick scissor cuts, then begins filling it up with stuff: grilled meat, cheese, rice, chopped tomato, cucumber, cilantro. The resulting meal, which costs $10, ends up looking like the contents of a Chipotle bowl dumped into a bag of snacks. Videos of the process have racked up a ton of views online—and have resulted in long lines at the truck, which generally parks behind a nondescript Alexandria off-ice building.

Walking tacos aren’t unique, but the Flavor Hive twist is that customers bring their own chips. Initially, that was mainly because it wasn’t possible to fit hundreds of chip bags into the cramped food truck, says co-owner Shihan Chowdhury. But “what it did at the psyche level was make customers feel like they were part of the process.”

I recently went to try it out myself. When I pulled my car into an unprepossessing Alexandria parking lot, I quickly realized I’d found the right place—but had brought the wrong bag of chips. Even on a weeknight, a big crowd was queuing up, and they mostly clutched enormous sacks. I was toting a plain old individual-size bag of Fritos, a rookie move: A walking taco costs the same no matter what size the chip pouch. And anyway, excess is the point. Chowdhury initially marketed the idea with video clips of influencers complaining about Chipotle’s small portions.

Chowdhury and business partner Amgd Gende had first opened a food truck selling halal quesadillas and rice bowls in early 2024. They were later approached by two unexpected business partners: Drew Kellogg, once an exec at Chipotle, and Basim Mansour, owner of the plumbing company Michael & Son. Together they hatched the Flavor Hive truck, and Chowdhury started slinging his walking tacos last July.

Now the fun bring-your-own gimmick and savvy online marketing are paying off. A recent trip to Richmond drew 1,000 people an hour, and the concept has proven so popular in the DC area that a permanent shop in Annandale is planned, with several more to come.

So is it worth waiting in line for? I thought the food was flavorful, but my advice is to skip the chips and order the masala-spiced toppings on rice, an alternate option. Otherwise, you risk having the experience I did: consuming the meaty part quickly and ending up with a half bag of naked chips, then slowly realizing you’ve just paid to eat Fritos with a fork in a dark parking lot.

This article appears in the May 2025 issue of Washingtonian.

Ike Allen

Assistant Editor