Yelp recently published rankings for the Top 15 Taco Towns and Top 100 Taco Spots in the United States. However, one major Texas city, San Antonio, is noticeably absent from both lists.
San Antonio, known as the breakfast taco capital of America and boasting an undeniable taco history, was snubbed by Yelp. To rub salt in the wound, Austin, Texas, was ranked as the number one city for tacos.
Yelp claimed that their “data science team ranked the cities with the highest number of consumer searches for ‘taco’ from August 2022 to August 2023” to determine the Top 15 Taco Towns in the U.S. However, using web search data as the sole criteria for determining top taco towns is questionable, akin to putting Velveeta in a bean and cheese taco.
I would like to organize a city-wide boycott of Yelp for this culinary injustice of listing Austin as #1 for tacos and not even having San Antonio on the map.
I’ll also be submitting a White House petition to correct this. pic.twitter.com/ysrLXKMc6C
— Joey Palacios – Texas Public Radio (@Joeycules) September 29, 2023
San Antonio and Austin have a well-known taco rivalry. In 2016, Eater Austin published an article claiming that Austin was the birthplace of the “breakfast taco.” This sparked controversy and fueled the rivalry between the two cities.
Love Austin, but the tacos are trash. San Antonio is the capital of breakfast tacos.
— Ready Revolution (@ReadyRevolution) September 30, 2023
A few days later, the OC Weekly published a response 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 criticized Eater Austin’s article, calling it “s–tty reporting.”
In 2021, the Texas Food and Wine Alliance organized the Taco Rumble, a competition between chefs from San Antonio and Austin. San Antonio emerged as the winner. The following year, at SXSW in Austin, actor Pedro Pascal (known for his role in The Mandalorian) was asked which city has better breakfast tacos, and he expressed a preference for San Antonio’s tacos. Clearly, arguing with the Mandalorian is futile.
Image Source: Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock