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'There's a problem with the sauce': Times Square taqueria's salsa sparks lawsuit
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Mar 11, 2026
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Walter Wuthmann
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Walter Wuthmann
Published Mar 11, 2026
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Between hearings for deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and accused CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, the U.S. federal court in Manhattan was recently asked to consider an important question: When is salsa too spicy?
The precipitating event was a 2024 trip to a Times Square taqueria by a German tourist. The plaintiff, Faycal Manz, said he suffered “severe physical symptoms” following a single bite of Los Tacos No. 1’s green salsa, and sued for damages.
“I felt I was too hot. My mind, my head,” Manz recalled in a phone interview from Schemmerhofen, a small farming village in the south of Germany. The engineer said he quickly sprang into action: “I contacted my wife — I said there’s a problem with the sauce.”
Manz documented his alleged ailments in court filings, saying his tongue burned, his face turned red, and his heart rate soared. He said he suffered gastrointestinal distress and mouth sores that lasted for days.
I told Manz I wanted to go try the salsa for myself.
“Please be careful,” he warned. “I had no idea. I put a lot of spoons inside.”
So on a raw March afternoon I visited Los Tacos’ Times Square outpost. The taco chain was started by three friends from California and Tijuana, and now has ten locations across Manhattan.
For the sake of journalistic objectivity, I ordered exactly what Manz said he had: one carne asada taco, one pollo asado and one adobada pork. Los Tacos No. 1 has a self-serve salsa bar with a red salsa, a green salsa and pico de gallo. They are not labeled to indicate their spiciness.
As Manz said he did, I spooned the red salsa onto two tacos and the infamous salsa verde onto the third. I put my paper plate down on the white tiled counter. The green salsa stared up at me — a toxic plasma of emerald tomato juice flecked with chili seeds.
I bit straight into the green-smothered taco. There was a flicker of fire on my tongue, and some numbness on my lips. But then it passed.
The salsa just wasn’t that spicy.
Please be careful, I had no idea. I put a lot of spoons inside.
Faycal Manz, after I told him I wanted to reproduce his order
I surveyed some of my fellow patrons for a gut check. “ To be honest, it's pretty mild,” said David Boudreau, who was visiting New York from Boston. “ You should probably try a sauce before you, like, dump the whole thing on your taco.”
Nearby, Amanda Hosni dug into a taco platter with two church friends from Georgia. The three women were initially reluctant to try the green salsa but were captivated by the tale of Manz’s lawsuit. Hosni agreed to sample it with a tortilla chip.
“I'm a wimp, and this is not spicy,” she said. She dipped another chip. “I mean, it's spicy, there's some heat on my tongue, but I'm not gonna sue anybody for personal injury.”
Things weren’t looking good for Manz out in the court of public opinion. And back in the granite halls of the Manhattan federal courthouse, a judge ultimately sided with the restaurant.
In a 12-page written opinion, U.S. District Judge Dale Ho found “there is no duty to warn a consumer of the spice-associated risks that come with consuming salsa.”
Ho, who also oversaw the botched corruption case against former mayor Eric Adams, clearly had some fun with the ruling. He cited the 1985 case of a husband and wife suing a Bronx McDonald’s because their coffee was too hot – not to be confused with the Albuquerque woman who won nearly $3 million a few years later after spilling coffee on her lap in a McDonald’s drive-through.
But Ho found Los Tacos No. 1’s salsa fell within the “norm” for products of its nature. “In fact, when it comes to salsa, the spice is often the point,” he wrote. Ho denied Manz’s claims and closed the case.
Los Tacos No. 1 did not respond to requests for comment.
That was the end of the line for Manz’s claim. But it turned out this was not the only lawsuit he filed after his 2024 trip to New York.
Court records show Manz sued a New Jersey Walmart for discrimination, saying he wasn’t able to access the store’s Wi-Fi because the login required a domestic phone number. A federal court dismissed the claim last month.
Manz also sued the NYPD after, he said, he witnessed two assailants violently beat a homeless man on a street near Times Square. Manz called 911 to report the assault, according to court documents. But Manz said the dispatcher demanded a specific address to respond to rather than a nearby landmark, saying the NYPD “does not use Google.” The officer allegedly said they wouldn’t be able to call him back because their system was “unable to call foreign numbers.”
Manz is demanding $10 million in damages, policy reforms that would allow the NYPD to place international calls and mandatory training for effectively communicating with nonresident and foreign-language callers.
The NYPD denied all of Manz’s allegations in a legal filing. The case is ongoing.
In our conversations, Manz came off as incredibly concerned with rules and safety, and a bit bewildered by his experience with American institutions.
“I have this German mind: If something is too spicy, it should be warned — or at least labeled,” he said. And he believes his approach is paying off. He told me he came back to New Jersey last spring and was able to access the Walmart Wi-Fi with his German number — which he speculated might be a direct result of his lawsuit.
Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.
Manz said he’s not pursuing any further appeal of his salsa case. But he still hopes Los Tacos No. 1 will add labels to its salsa bar to warn off other spice-sensitive souls.
“The main objective for me is to help,” he said. “To correct something I think is wrong.”
Tagged
food
manhattan
Walter Wuthmann
Walter Wuthmann is a reporter covering public safety and the legal system.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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