An Ode to Los Burritos Tapatios

On this Cinco De Mayo, I'd like to talk about the only thing in my hometown that even remotely resembles cultural diversity.

I am writing this from my living room/bedroom in my East Village apartment. I am drinking a Grape Olipop. 7.7/10.

I am not unique for having a hometown “authentic” Mexican restaurant that my friends and I would flock to after parties and football games. In fact, I resent the people that swear by the fact that their hometown Mexican food joint is “the best in the world”. No it isn’t! Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely that “Los Guapos Pancho's” in Toms River, NJ is the epicenter of Mexican cuisine.

However, my experiences not being 100% unique does not discount the impact they had on my life. And with that, take a ride down memory lane to 2015 to Roosevelt Road in Lombard, IL.

When you think “prime location”, you think of the retail strip just east of the Roosevelt and Meyers intersection. Located right in between the two high schools in town and sharing the same parking lot as “Overtime Bacon Bar”, this spot was the Fertile Crescent of DuPage County.

The prime location and guaranteed influx of drunk high schoolers and equally drunk habitants of Overtime Bacon Bar makes you wonder how much money McDonald’s offered this joint to buyout the location. Unfortunately we won’t know the answer to that because there is a negative percent chance that “Los Burritos Tapatios” has any sort of contact method.

Inside you are greeted by this menu, and to be honest the quality of this picture fully encompasses the experience of walking into Los B’s. You are a little dazed and have blurred vision from the activities you were partaking in 20 minutes beforehand, and the musk and smoke from the kitchen that is essentially in the dining room creates a haze that rivals your buddy "Tanner’s” 2007 Ford Focus that he hot boxed before school every day.

Once you place your order, you are able to grab your own basket of chips from the “basket of chips” pyramid. This is by far the best part about Los Burritos Tapatios. Typically, our buddy Mikey would do the honors of grabbing a solo basket for each of us, and then would douse the chips in a few half cups of salt. About halfway through your second of basket of chips was finished, your food would arrive, and you’d be greeted by this sight.

Another differentiator at Los Burritos was the red cups. Those bad boys filled with a coca-cola created an elixir that perfectly balanced the 79g of sodium you just consumed in 4 minutes.

After you ate your meal in 4.5 minutes without saying a word to anyone else, it was now time to play the field a little bit and see who else had strolled into Los B’s at that hour. This was the place where you’d run into a guy at a neighboring high school that you’d played in travel basketball growing up, and had immense respect for on the court, but had never crossed paths in real life. It was a beautiful meeting ground for the “who’s who” of the area.

Inevitably, the scary drug dealer crowd would start to roll in. These are the guys that you know for sure carry a switchblade and sell weed to 7th graders at Westlake Middle School. With that said, you need them on your good side. Thankfully, as someone who wasn’t tied up in the underworld of 17 year old drug king pins, this crew saw me as a non-threat, and thus made me feel safe around them. It’s like in the gang world, you don’t go after people that aren’t in the game.

The feeling of leaving Los Burritos is as familiar to me as anything. Walking back to your buddy’s car, full stomach, not even knowing what a “hangover” is, is one of the greatest fleeting feelings of all time.

Thanks for the memories, Los Burritos Tapatios. Happy Cinco De Mayo (I hope this isn’t cultural appropriation or something I promise that’s not my intention.)

- jack