Yelp recently released a list of the Top 15 Taco Towns in the U.S. and Top 100 Taco Spots in the U.S., and one major Texas city is feeling very disrespected.
Nowhere on either list is San Antonio, Texas, the breakfast taco mecca of America and a city with a taco history that is undeniable. To add fuel to the fire, Yelp listed Austin, Texas, as the No. 1 city for tacos.
Yelp said they came up with the Top 15 Taco Towns in the U.S. list by having their “data science team rank the cities with the highest amount of consumer searches for ‘taco’ from August 2022 – August 2023.” A web search dictating which cities are top taco towns makes about as much sense as putting Velveeta in your bean and cheese taco.
San Antonio and Austin have a taco rivalry that was underscored in 2016 when Eater Austin published an article called “How Austin Became the Home of the Crucial Breakfast Taco” and claimed that the phrase “breakfast taco” was invented in Austin.
A few days later, the OC Weekly published a counter article titled, “Who Invented Breakfast Tacos? Not Austin – and People Should STFU About It” by Gustavo Arellano, author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” Arellano called Eater Austin’s article “s–tty reporting.”
In 2021, the Texas Food and Wine Alliance held its inaugural Taco Rumble between chefs from San Antonio and Austin. San Antonio won. A year later during SXSW in Austin, actor Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), who lived in San Antonio as a kid, was asked which city has better breakfast tacos. He said he prefers tacos from San Antonio. Basically, don’t argue with the Mandalorian.