The restaurant shared a closing announcement via an Instagram.
“Last chance to get your crunchy taco bee fix,” the story read above a photo of its signature crunchy beef taco. “Our final service will be Saturday, April 26.”
Hinojosa, who opened CRUjiente on 40th Street and Camelback Road with Jason Morris in November 2016, followed up with a statement on his Instagram account, announcing the closure “with a very heavy heart.”
“Jason and I opened CRU in 2016, we followed no rules. We decided that we were going to serve what we thought would give our guests ‘the best’ taco and margarita experience. Not the best in Arcadia, or the best in Phoenix, just ‘the best,’” he shared. “Almost 9 years of sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears, it comes to an end.”
The Premier Cru margarita at CRUjiente Tacos is one of the "well-balanced and delicious" drinks that garnered its Best of Phoenix award for Best Margaritas.
Debby Wolvos
Local devotees flocked to CRUjiente for its innovative bites and top-flight margaritas, which garnered recognition in Phoenix New Times’ Best of Phoenix, taking home the title of “Best Margaritas” in 2024 for its “well-balanced and delicious” cocktails. It's a category that CRUjiente also was awarded from 2020 to 2022. The taqueria likewise received Best of Phoenix awards for Best New-School Taco in 2019 and Best Mexican Restaurant to Take a Scenester in 2018.
CRUjiente Tacos’ following stretched beyond the state’s borders, too. The restaurant was featured in the book “American Tacos: A History and Guide,” by James Beard Award-winning author Jose Ralat.
CRUjiente appears in a chapter titled “El Taco Moderno,” which highlights “contemporary, ‘chef-driven’ and nuevo immigrant tacos.” The word crujiente means crunch in Spanish, and the author highlights the taqueria’s crunchy beef and birria-style lamb tacos, as well as globe-trotting versions, such as a Korean fried chicken taco, that reflect Hinojosa's fine dining background.
Hinojosa's inspiration is quoted in the book.
“I was thinking, I’ve got twenty years of cooking and all these different styles of food and all these techniques from working at all these four- and five-star-type places. To incorporate that into tacos could be really cool,” the chef tells Ralat.
The restaurant was also featured on the Food Network. Guy Fieri visited CRUji for an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” that aired in April 2024. Hinojosa also competed on the cooking competition show "Chopped" in 2018.
Friends and followers shared their gratitude to Hinojosa, offering well-wishes and plans to stop in one last time.
The chef, too, offered thanks to his business partner, family, friends, staff and others who impacted him and the restaurant over the years.
“There have been so many special people along the way," he wrote, "thank you all."
CRUjiente Tacos
Closes April 263961 E. Camelback Road
