ATHENS — There’s a taste of Mexican food, Southern California style, cooking up in Athens, now.

Oscar’s Taco Shop, a family-owned, quick-service restaurant, is dishing out So-Cal favorites at its first Alabama location. There are several stores in the Nashville-Murfreesboro area and Arizona.

The menu features the standards such as tacos, burritos, nachos and, of course, chips and dip.

But Oscar’s puts its own special touch on the selections with the likes of carne asada fries, surf and turf fries, breakfast burritos, and rolled tacos.

The chain began after family patriarch Javier Ruiz and his brother David Ruiz opened Cotijas Taco Shop in California in 1974.

Thanks to the success of this restaurant, other family became more involved in the company. In 2003, the Ruiz brothers expanded to Tennessee under the name Oscar’s Taco Shop.

Javier is now retired and has since handed the keys to his kids with a reminder: “Always look forward and never look back.”

The restaurant boasts “no grand gestures, just good food waiting to be shared.”

Oscar’s Taco Shop is at 1260 U.S. 72 in Athens, just west of I-65, across the highway from Chick-fil-A. It is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.