There’s a queue of teachers, contractors, plumbers and doctors. There’s also an Olympic downhill skier, a whole neon-vested road crew, a tech bro and a bartender. And then there’s a first-timer, who eventually makes his way to the front of the line and asks the cashier the question he’s heard a thousand times: “What’s good?”

The cashier pauses, looks the customer in the eyes, but before he has a chance to say anything, the person behind the guy in line calls out, “Everything.” 

For the past 35 years, T’s Mesquite Rotisserie — a 500-square-foot sliver of a restaurant tucked into an Incline Village strip mall — has been the place “everything” in the town revolves around. 

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Customers line up to order at T’s Mesquite Rotisserie in Incline Village, Nev.

It’s no more true than today, as the village’s dramatically changing demographic continues to bring in a steady conga line of increasingly high-profile residents and their demands. But in the midst of this change, it’s T’s that remains the community’s actual hub for a cross section of the diverse and disparate population, all united — if only for 10-20 minutes — over a mutual love and admiration for a perfectly prepared chicken and tri-tip.

T’s is part sit-down-and-catch-up joint, part egalitarian grab-and-go spot. It’s the first stop you make coming into town and the last thing you do before you leave. It is, simply put, the glue that holds Incline Village together, with an unwavering formula that’s both tried and timeless. 

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“We’re cash-only still, but we’re cheap. There’s no places that are cheap,” second-generation owner Jamie Swing told SFGATE while taking a break during a recent lunch shift at his family’s restaurant. “[Elsewhere] you get a burger, drink, fries, and it’s like, ‘Ohh, what happened?’ Here, you can come get a burrito for $10 out the door.”

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The famous rotisserie burritos and tacos at T’s Mesquite Rotisserie in Incline Village, Nev.

The concept sounds so simple that it should no longer exist in 2026. And, to a large extent, people come to T’s not only for good, cost-effective comfort food — served with a side of an inevitable run-in with someone in town they know or at least recognize — but also to remember a time that didn’t seem so fragmented, complicated or expensive.

T’s, in other words, is pure joy in a foil-wrapped bundle. This is, after all, the place that Jack Black loves so much he once asked to don an apron and work the line in the open kitchen. There’s a picture of him doing just that right next to the soda fountain.

It’s also where Melissa Joan Hart brought her brand of magic — and family — for years while raising her kids in the town’s whimsical Tyrolian Village........

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