National Fajita Day is a holiday that celebrates one of the tastiest of Tex-Mex creations. This holiday falls on August 18th every year and is a day in which people can enjoy a warm tortilla filled with chicken, beef, shrimp, or pork and then garnished with onions, peppers, and a variety of other ingredients. Like National Taco Day, this holiday is one in which people better be prepared to overindulge a little bit as they’re likely to want to enjoy two or maybe even three fajitas on this day. 

The History Of National Fajita Day

This holiday was first pitched by On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina in August of 2016. Ever since then, people have created and shared some of their favorite fajita recipes with the world. Although this holiday hasn’t been around for a while, the fajita is actually a dish that can trace its roots back to the late 1930s.

The History Of The Fajita

Although the fajita might have been around before the 1930s, it wasn’t until this decade that there was concrete evidence of people making them. This is when Mexican range workers living in West Texas along the Rio Grande invented one of the best Tex-Mex dishes to ever be created.

Back in those days, the ranch workers would sometimes receive meat as partial payment for a week’s work. This would often be the parts of the cow that wasn’t as commercially viable to sell, so this meat payment was usually the cow’s internal organs, its head, or skirt steak. 

These workers had to find a way to make these parts edible, so they would marinate the meat, grill it, and then serve it in tortillas. For generations, fajitas were the mainstay of picnics and backyard BBQs. Then things suddenly changed during the 1960s.

In September of 1969, Sonny Falcon set up a concession stand and sold fajitas during a festival. He would then go on to sell fajitas at other events including rodeos, outdoor festivals, and even fairs. In 1973, Ninfa Rodrigues opened a Tex-Mex restaurant named Ninfa’s. From then on, word of these tasty dishes spread across the country with countless restaurants making and selling them.

How To Celebrate National Fajita Day

National Fajita Day can be celebrated by a person heading out to their favorite Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant and ordering a fajita served up in their favorite way. Nowadays, fajitas are made with a whole assortment of different ingredients including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, cod, red and green peppers, onions, cilantro, and too many other ingredients to list. Once a person has found the type of fajitas they love to eat, they can then take a picture of it and post it on their social media accounts using the hashtag #NationalFajitaDay, so everyone can see the fun that you’re having.