MIAMI.- 32.7 million people of Mexican ancestry in the United States, allow the presence of this culture to be increasingly broad and solid on American soil. Their food does not escape this reality, and is currently imposed in the American restaurants.
According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, with data from the firm SafeGraph and the review site Yelp, 11% of the country’s restaurants serve Mexican food.
The gastronomy of the Aztec nation predominates in the United States, representing the vast majority of Hispanic or Latin restaurants of any type, with presence in 85% of counties. While only 29% of cities have any type of Latin or Hispanic restaurant, which is not primarily Mexican.
Only 2% of food establishments in the US serve food from other Hispanic cuisine, especially, Caribbean, Cuban, Latin American, Peruvian, Salvadoran and Spanish.
Distribution of Mexican restaurants
Mexican establishments predominate, mainly, in California y Texas, states that are home to the majority of the Mexican-American population. Between them, they own 39% of all restaurants with Aztec cuisine in the country, with 22% in California and 17% in Texas.
Only Los Angeles is home to 30% of Mexican restaurants Of California. While in Texas, 17% of Aztec restaurants are located in Harris County, which includes Houston; and Bexar counties, which includes San Antonio, and Dallas counties each own 9% of the establishments.
In Florida, New York and Illinois There are also a large number of Mexican restaurants. Each state has 4% of the national total and, together with Texas and California, they cover 51% of all establishments with Aztec cuisine.
According to the analysis, Mexican food establishments represent an especially large proportion of all establishments in the southwestern states of the country, which border Mexico. In New Mexico, they represent 22%, in Texas 20%, in Arizona 18% and in California 17%.
At the county level, there are 10 where Mexican establishments represent more than 33% of all restaurants. Eight of these 10 counties are in Texas and most are located along the US-Mexico border.
Restaurant Features
The Pew Research Center determined that 22% of Mexican restaurants nationwide are restaurants from “fast food”. 12% of them specialize in serving tacos, 8% are classified as food trucks or carts, and 6% offer “Tex-Mex” food.
Mexican restaurants also tend to have affordable prices.. Among restaurants with pricing data, 61% of Mexican restaurants are rated a “dollar sign” on Yelp’s four-point price scale.
Less than 1% of all Aztec establishments nationwide (just 251 total) have a rating of three or four dollar signs on the Yelp scale. A quarter of these most expensive Mexican establishments are located in Los Angeles, Cook and New York.
Source: With information from the Pew Research Center
