Waring Road's go-to taco shop in Allied Gardens, San Diego, El Rodeo Taco Shop & Grill serves Mexican food from a counter-service kitchen at 5149 Waring Rd, CA 92120, on the small-business strip that functions as Allied Gardens' main commercial district. Waring Road runs north-south through the neighborhood between Orcutt Avenue and Zion Avenue, and the taco shop anchors the food end of a retail cluster that also includes Brothers Family Restaurant and several local service businesses. The rolled tacos are the most-ordered item — five crispy taquitos served with guacamole and cheese — and the carne asada tacos use grilled steak cut to order rather than pulled from a steam tray. Breakfast burritos launch at 7 in the morning with builds that include cubed potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese inside a flour tortilla, and the breakfast menu runs through the full morning rush. Soups include albondigas and caldo, both served in portions large enough to function as a full meal, and the churros on the dessert menu are fried to order and dusted with cinnamon sugar. The 92120 ZIP places Allied Gardens in the residential corridor between SDSU to the south and the I-8 freeway to the north, and the Kaiser Permanente Zion medical campus a few blocks east generates a steady weekday lunch crowd from hospital staff and visitors. Best tacos in San Diego searches increasingly surface neighborhood taco shops that prioritize made-to-order grilling over pre-cooked steam-table service, and El Rodeo's kitchen runs that model across all proteins. Catering orders for parties of 50-plus tacos are a regular part of the operation, with carne asada, pollo asado, and al pastor as the standard protein mix for large-format orders. The same Allied Gardens corridor on Waring Road extends south to Rockets Pizza and Subs, giving the neighborhood a taco-to-pizza dinner rotation without leaving the block. Dogs are welcome at the outdoor tables, and the salsa and guacamole are made fresh in-house rather than sourced from commercial suppliers.