The Burrito Blog

Roberto's

Just Not These 24 Hours

I went to Roberto's, which claims to serve delicious burritos 24 hours a day. I offer proof that this statement is false - that they do not serve burritos 24 hours a day.

Are they delicious? I can neither confirm nor deny.

See also: trouble with neon signs.

Monday, April 03, 2006 by Jonah. Permalink for Just Not These 24 Hours

Welcome To Roberto's

After receiving some passionate hate mail for not having been to Roberto's, a special effort was made to clear up the situation.

Roberto's has an interesting history, similar to the familial feud behind Anna's and Boca in Boston. Local San Diegan burrito expert Paco explains:

Since you are sort of a burrito historian, you'll appreciate the Roberto's / Alberto's longstanding blood feud and its subsequent cascading effect on 95% of the burrito purveyors of our fair city as witnessed by the fact that most taco shops in town are named with infinite variations of the suffix "berto" no matter how ridiculous.

The Roberto's / Alberto's rivalry started when two brothers by those names inherited the original "Roberto's" chain, the granddaddy of all taco shops, from their old man. The younger brother, Alberto took his share of Roberto's restaurants and renamed them after himself. As the older brother expanded his number of shops, the younger brother followed suit.

Soon, both shops could be seen all over San Diego County. As the expansion grew to the point of diminishing returns somewhere in the mid eighties, they both began to sell off their less popular shops. Not to lose the drawing power of the Roberto/Alberto name the new owners of these shops began renaming them in a similar fashion to the point of lunacy. It started innocently enough with Gilberto's and progressed to such ridiculous and obviously made up names such as Adalberto's, Filiberto's, Hilberto's, Ediberto's, and my personal favorite Ramberto's...etc, etc, you get the picture.

Obviously, this was a place I had to visit.

Monday, April 03, 2006 by Jonah. Permalink for Welcome To Roberto's | Comments (7)