Roll’n Up Chingon Is a New Food Truck Serving Green Chile-Smothered Fries and More

Mathew Atencio and his wife, Donelle, both grew up in Denver, and recently launched one of the newest food trucks to hit the Mile High city streets.

Matthew was raised near Sloan’s Lake, where his mother opened a restaurant called Mile High Mexican Grill. “I worked there for eleven years as the head chef,” he says. “Things kind of started falling during COVID, and we had to close. …[Donelle and I] figured we’d start our own thing based on the restaurant business and experience.

“We’ve been together for seven years and just had our third anniversary,” says Donelle, who also helped out at the restaurant sometimes. “When we met, we brought all of our kids together. We have four kids; we’re a blended family. So opening up this business kind of helped us to be there when the kids need us.”

Although the couple had tossed around the food truck idea for several years, they finally reached a breaking point. “At the beginning of the year, we were like, you know what? Let’s just do it,” Donelle says.

With a firm decision to go all in on a food truck, the couple worked with a fabricator. After a few delays, the Atencios received their custom-built trailer, but before they could hit the streets, they needed to come up with a name. “We went through a lot to figure that out,” Matthew says. “And then we just said, hey, we’re rolling up. People roll up. We’re rolling up burritos. Then we figured, we’re kind of badass, and that’s what ‘chingon’ means.”

The truck’s logo is a cowboy chili pepper, inspired by the couple’s love of the television show Yellowstone. Apple One Artwork developed the truck’s custom trailer wrap, which includes the pepper holding a burrito and a taco.

“It was hectic,” Matthew says of the truck’s first service last month. “The whole day was pretty insane. Our muffler fell off our truck, so I had to pull over to take care of that.”

“Anything that could have gone wrong went wrong that day,” Donelle adds. “But we kept going, and we’ve done a few breweries, and now we have this on lock.”

While Mathew admits that operating a food truck is completely different than working in a restaurant, he welcomes the challenge and focuses on the positive. “We’re having fun. This is my partner, so just being together and doing what we love is really enjoyable,” he says. “And the food truck industry is pretty awesome. Everybody communicates with each other. It’s a really supportive group.”

“I think that has been the biggest surprise,” Donelle adds. “We were a little worried starting out thinking that this was going to be a big competition thing, but it’s not, and I think that makes it more fun. … I told [Matthew] that the day we stop having fun, something is not right.”

Drawing inspiration from their now-closed family restaurant, the Roll’n Up Chingon menu features many items that Mathew spent over a decade perfecting, with a slightly new twist. “We added a little more kick to the green chile and tweaked a few things here and there,” he says, “but everybody always asked for my grilled burrito at the restaurant, so that’s on there. I like to put over-easy eggs on things, so I grill the burrito with over-easy eggs inside, and it just makes the burrito so much more moist and delicious.”

Donelle’s favorite item is the Mexican hamburger. “You get beans and hamburger patties wrapped in a tortilla. It’s basically a burrito, but with hamburger,” she says.

The truck also offers both grilled and street-style tacos, as well as traditional cheeseburgers, tots and fries along with the option to have any menu item smothered with green chile. It serves breakfast-style sandwiches and burritos all day, as well, and it plans to sling them at a parking lot at West 38th Avenue and Osceola Street a few mornings each week.

For the truck’s full schedule, find it on Instagram @rollnupchingon or on the Truckster app.