A food truck cook celebrating a birthday in Washington Heights was fatally knifed by hooligans who demanded he pay for their meals, his grieving girlfriend told The Post.
The argument last week sparked a clash that left Mateo Solis, 20, dead and his family grasping for answers as NYPD cops released surveillance photos of two men who they said were behind the attack.
Maria Moyotl Capulin, 24, Solis’ girlfriend and mother of his two children, told The Post that she recognized the attackers — who she said laughed right before the deadly scuffle — as the men in the photos.
The pair had harassed Solis early July 2 during a belated birthday celebration for Capulin at Taco Inn, a Mexican eatery along Saint Nicholas Avenue near West 185th Street, she said.
“They tried to intimidate Mateo to make him pay for their food,” Capulin said through a translator — Mateo’s brother Javier Solis, 39.
Why the haranguing hooligans thought Solis should pay for their food and drink remained unclear Tuesday.
Police told The Post that the stabbing stemmed from a “dispute.”
Solis and Capulin, who both recently arrived in the US from Mexico, worked together in the Solis family-owned and run taco truck Tacos Moy, which mostly operates at the Dyckman Street station on the 1 line.
They held an overdue birthday party last week at Taco Inn with Solis’ younger brother Roman, 15, where Capulin contended two men stood over Solis and demanded he pay for their meal.
Solis allegedly refused. The men later demanded Solis pay for their drinks at the restaurant bar, which he again refused, Capulin said.
After both parties left the restaurant about 2.15 a.m, the men called out to Solis and laughingly asked to talk, getting very close to him, Capulin said.
“I don’t know what they said to Mateo but I saw Mateo push the guy in the black shirt, who fell down,” she said.
She believes the man in the black shirt stabbed Solis at some point in the scrum.
“I don’t know if he had already stabbed Mateo. They were very close,” she said.
The men ran away, with Solis — who was stabbed in the back — briefly chasing after them before he collapsed, Capulin said.
Medics rushed Solis in stable condition to Harlem Hospital Center, but his condition worsened and doctors pronounced him dead at 9 a.m. that day, police said.
Javier Solis, who lived in the same Fort George building and worked side-by-side with Mateo in the taco truck, told The Post through tears he wants his brother’s killer caught.
“We need whoever killed Mateo caught,” he said.
Guillermo Hernandez, manager of Taco Inn, said the men in the CrimeStoppers pictures visited the restaurant every month or so.
Capulin hasn’t told their children — a boy, 2, and girl, 4 — that their dad, Solis, is dead. The children live with their grandmother in Puebla, Mexico, where they are currently looking for a child psychologist to help break the news.
“I wanted to marry Mateo one day,” she said.
“I will continue with the plan. The plan is to finish building a house for my kids in Mexico so I can stay together with my kids.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Amanda Woods
