When Mario Benassi first came to Alaska in 1997 to work on a film shoot, he was immediately captivated by the landscape. A filmmaker who had worked for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet, Mario was accustomed to traveling the world in search of stories and beautiful places. But Alaska was different. “I came up here with a buddy of mine, and I said, ‘This is the most beautiful place on the planet. This is just unbelievably gorgeous,’” he recalls.
A few years later, Mario brought his wife, Natalie, and their children to Haines, in Southeast Alaska. Natalie is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico, and the family had been living in Colorado for several years. As their children grew older, the couple began thinking about where they wanted to raise their family. Natalie quickly fell in love with the community, and Haines became home.
Eventually, after their children had grown and Mario was no longer pursuing nature photography, Natalie decided she wanted to start something of her own. “She said, ‘I want to open a taco shop,’” Mario remembers.
That idea became Julián’s Todos Tacos, which opened in 2019. The taco truck soon became a seasonal fixture in Haines, offering Mexican food made with recipes rooted in Natalie’s family traditions. Many came from her mother, and the couple worked hard to bring authentic ingredients to Southeast Alaska. Ethnic ingredients are difficult to find in Haines because they must be shipped to Juneau before making their way to town. To keep traditional dishes on the menu, the couple used to travel to Colorado every year to purchase freshly roasted green chiles, which they would freeze and bring back to Haines. They also made their own fresh corn tortillas and prepared beans every night.
“It’s a ton of work,” Mario says of making tortillas by hand. Over the years, the Benassis have taught generations of local young people how to prepare the food, including members of the Haines High School cheerleading team, who used to work at the taco shop. For Mario and Natalie, however, Julián’s Todos Tacos is about more than food. It is also about memory and legacy.
The couple’s oldest son, Mario Jr., died in 2018 at the age of 23. A talented musician who sang and performed in Spanish, he had traveled extensively, including hitchhiking across Mexico to connect with his Mexican roots before continuing to Guatemala, where he met friends living near Lake Atitlán. After his death, friends from around the world gathered in Haines to celebrate his life. The gathering brought approximately 80 people from different countries and cultures to the small Alaska community.
With so many people arriving, the Benassis opened their taco cart to feed the gathering. They named it Julián’s Todos Tacos in honor of their son, whose middle name was Julián. The taco truck served beans, chips, pozole, salmon, and crab. What began as an unexpected moment of service helped give new meaning to their lives.
Julián’s Todos Tacos opened for a few months every year, and the Benassis became a familiar presence at the Haines Fair, where they usually sold more than 1,000 tamales in just three days. For Natalie, the goal was to create the kind of food memories that last a lifetime.
When visitors ask where to find tacos or Mexican food in Haines, locals are quick to point them toward the Benassis. Their homemade tortillas, beans, and tamales have already become part of the town’s story—and some flavors are simply too memorable to ever disappear.
This season, however, Julián’s Todos Tacos has remained closed as Natalie continues to focus on her recovery from a health issue. For now, the taco truck is quiet, but the memories created around its food remain.
This article was made possible by a grant from the 2025 ACEJ: Alaska Arts Reporting Initiative at the Alaska Community Foundation.
