Tacos Vs. Burritos: How Does Your City Stack Up?

How many non-chain Mexican restaurants does your city have? And out of those, which ones have more tacos on their menus than burritos? The folks behind Priceonomics crunched the numbers, and the data is pretty surprising.

As for cities with the most non-chain Mexican restaurants, the top city might be pretty surprising to some: It's Chicago, with 225. (You're probably not surprised if you live in Chicago — the Windy City had nearly 700,000 Mexican-born residents as of 2012, second only to Los Angeles among U.S. cities.) Up next is New York City, with 224, off by just one restaurant. Then comes Houston with 177, Los Angeles with 153, and San Diego with 138 to round out the top five. Some surprises in the top 25 include: Seattle with 69; Portland, Oregon, with 62; Washington, D.C., with 53; Minneapolis with 43; and Omaha, Nebraska, with 32.

And how about the taco-burrito divide? In San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Tuscon, and Houston, more than 70 percent of most Mexican menus are dominated by tacos. But in Indianapolis, Portland, San Jose, and Sacramento, 51 percent or more of all Mexican menu space is dominated by burritos, with tacos taking a backseat. Surprisingly, in San Francisco, arguably the burrito capital of America, 52 percent of menu space is taken up by burritos, with 48 by tacos; presumably because all the places that offer burritos also offer the same amount of tacos. But it definitely proves one thing: If you want tons of taco options, head to Texas!