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This problem with the lack of good taco places in the suburbs continues to concern me. The other day ... maybe it was yesterday, I don't know: the days all seem the same when there are no good breakfast tacos readily available. Anyway, it occured to me, as I drove along Thousand Oaks Drive from 281 to Perrin-Beitel (to be disappointed yet again, this time at the Thousand Oaks Cafe, where mediocre food is served up by a resolutely unhappy waiter, in a setting that takes ordinary one step farther down the scale of quality), that there has to be some correlation between the age of development in an area and the dearth of quality Mexican food.
And by "quality" Mexican food, I mean, of course, Tex-Mex served in a family-owned business, with mamacita or abuelita in the kitchen, overseeing everything. Nothing less will do.
Where I live, in the old part of town -- my house was in a far-flung suburb back in the 1930s, about two miles from the Alamo -- excellent taquerias are thick on the ground. Outside of Loop 410, where few things existed before the British Invasion, and most things are no older than Hannah Montana, there are almost none. Oh, plenty of restaurants, sure: a few national or regional chains, and fast-food on every corner, some if it even purporting to be of the Mexican variety. Almost every major intersection has two or three strip centers, and every one of them has a restaurant of some kind in it.
Therein, I suspect, lies the problem: I'll just bet you that every one of those chain restaurants has an exclusivity clause in its lease, so that the landlord cannot rent to another restaurant business. This, if it is in fact the case, would tend to squeeze out the family restaurants, because exclusivity has a cost, and the family places, unless they're already established somewhere else, probably can't or won't pay the higher rates the landlord can claim from the chains.
Now, you understand that I don't object to this arrangement on principle. I'm something of a limited-capitalist myself, and it seems a valid working of the market to have these sorts of arrangements. And they only ensure limitation of competition within the strip center; there'll be another lousy restaurant across the street.
No, I decry the result because of the damage it does to the general public: most newcomers to San Antonio settle in those cookie-cutter suburbs that define Loopland, where seldom is heard a discouraging word (and if one is heard, it would have to be "traffic"). They live their lives in these same vapid environs, occasionally straying down a freeway to the Loop itself, or maybe even as far as downtown or the Quarry; and they are simply not exposed to the greatest culinary tradition this wonderful city has to offer. They grow up thinking that Taco Cabana is Mexican food. Or worse.
Years from now, when they're telling people about growing up in San Antonio, they'll sigh and nod and say, "Yeah...it was okay."
And the city will suffer.
And by "quality" Mexican food, I mean, of course, Tex-Mex served in a family-owned business, with mamacita or abuelita in the kitchen, overseeing everything. Nothing less will do.
Where I live, in the old part of town -- my house was in a far-flung suburb back in the 1930s, about two miles from the Alamo -- excellent taquerias are thick on the ground. Outside of Loop 410, where few things existed before the British Invasion, and most things are no older than Hannah Montana, there are almost none. Oh, plenty of restaurants, sure: a few national or regional chains, and fast-food on every corner, some if it even purporting to be of the Mexican variety. Almost every major intersection has two or three strip centers, and every one of them has a restaurant of some kind in it.
Therein, I suspect, lies the problem: I'll just bet you that every one of those chain restaurants has an exclusivity clause in its lease, so that the landlord cannot rent to another restaurant business. This, if it is in fact the case, would tend to squeeze out the family restaurants, because exclusivity has a cost, and the family places, unless they're already established somewhere else, probably can't or won't pay the higher rates the landlord can claim from the chains.
Now, you understand that I don't object to this arrangement on principle. I'm something of a limited-capitalist myself, and it seems a valid working of the market to have these sorts of arrangements. And they only ensure limitation of competition within the strip center; there'll be another lousy restaurant across the street.
No, I decry the result because of the damage it does to the general public: most newcomers to San Antonio settle in those cookie-cutter suburbs that define Loopland, where seldom is heard a discouraging word (and if one is heard, it would have to be "traffic"). They live their lives in these same vapid environs, occasionally straying down a freeway to the Loop itself, or maybe even as far as downtown or the Quarry; and they are simply not exposed to the greatest culinary tradition this wonderful city has to offer. They grow up thinking that Taco Cabana is Mexican food. Or worse.
Years from now, when they're telling people about growing up in San Antonio, they'll sigh and nod and say, "Yeah...it was okay."
And the city will suffer.
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