Anna's Taqueria is a chain of fast-service Mexican-fusion restaurants in the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

area.

Overview

Anna's is modeled after U.S. West Coast style Mexican cuisine, specifically the Mission-style burrito of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Its menu offers only four core items:

burrito A burrito (, ) is a dish in Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine that took form in Ciudad Juárez, consisting of a flour tortilla wrapped into a sealed cylindrical shape around various ingredients. The tortilla is sometimes lightly grilled or stea ...

taco A taco (, , ) is a traditional Mexican food consisting of a small hand-sized corn- or wheat-based tortilla topped with a filling. The tortilla is then folded around the filling and eaten by hand. A taco can be made with a variety of fillin ...

quesadilla A quesadilla (; ; Mexican diminutive of ''quesada'') is a Mexican dish consisting of a tortilla that is filled primarily with cheese, and sometimes meats, spices, and other fillings, and then cooked on a griddle or stove. Traditionally, a co ...

s and Mexican plates, and has been described as "the best burritos for next to nothing". The food is made using an

assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...

-style process.Cheng 2005 The chain currently has six stores in operation, including two in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

. In April 2009, Anna's Taqueria was recipient of the ''

Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States of America by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the ''Portland Phoenix'' an ...

's'' 'Best of Boston' Award for best fast food, while the company has won ''

Boston Magazine ''Boston'' is a monthly magazine concerning life in the Greater Boston area and has been in publication since 1805. History and profile ''Boston'' magazine was started in 1805. Metrocorp, Inc. bought the magazine in 1970. The company also owns ...

s 'Best of Boston' award multiple times.Wolfson 2005

History

The first Anna's Taqueria was founded by Michael Kamio and located in Brookline's

Coolidge Corner Coolidge Corner is a neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, centered on the intersection of Beacon Street and Harvard Street. The neighborhood takes its name from the Coolidge & Brother general store that opened in 1857 at that intersecti ...

in 1995 after a disagreement with his sister Mariko Kamio, who owns the competing Boca Grande chain. Since then, a second Brookline restaurant was opened in addition to the locations in Porter and Davis Squares, and restaurants were opened at MIT's Stratton Student Center and on Cambridge St. in Boston across from the Massachusetts General Hospital.Locations
– Anna's Taqueria website

Labor controversy

In 2004, Anna's Taqueria was made to pay $206,918 in back-wages to 127 employees. The Labor Department Wage and Hour Division found that the four stores had been employing individual employees at multiple locations and not paying the requisite time-and-a-half wages for time worked in excess of 40 hours between the months of January 2001 and January 2003.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * *

External links

Official website
{{Restaurants in Boston Mexican restaurants in the United States Restaurants in Boston Restaurants established in 1995