Late last month, the Dallas Business Journal reported that a Mexican chain restaurant would be making its way to Dallas in the near future. While this may initially sound as newsworthy as the latest pothole to open up downtown, Salsarita's got its start in Charlotte, North Carolina.
An east coast restaurant plans to teach Texas how to do Mexican food?
They've already started. The first Texas location opened in Tyler, and now 30 locations are planned for the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the next five years. That's a lot of quesaritos for a region that already has plenty of Tex-Mex, Mexican and other variations on the cuisine.
A quesarito, if you can't contain your curiosity, has nothing to do with quesadillas, but is simply a burrito of your choosing, draped in a velvety sheen of queso and finished with an artful ziz-zag of sour cream. A crisp tortilla topped like a pizza is called a Cantizza, and all the ingredients are lined up Chipotle-style so you can make your own custom salads, quesadillas, burritos, bowls and more.
Salsarita's got its start in 2000 and has 80 locations across the east coast and as far west as Kansas and Texas. With that much expansion there's certainly some appeal (they do sell margaritas), but earning Texas' affection is a serious test.
