Would you buy a $22 burrito? I would!

A burrito shop named La Vaca Birria says it’s had to raise their prices due to inflation, and that’s led them to sell a $22 burrito.

The restaurant is located in San Francisco’s trendy Mission District, where costs are already notoriously high for your average cuisine, but aren’t burritos supposed to be cheap? 

Welcome to inflation in 2024!

With inflation at 3.2% as of February 2024, the cost of everything that goes into making a burrito has gone up including beef, chicken onions, tortillas, and lettuce. 

Typically we don’t think of the ingredient in a burrito when it comes to inflation. It’s more typical to cite the latest Consumer Price Index for things like the price of gas and housing, which have all risen nationwide month-over-month in 2024.

If you want fresh, authentic Mexican food you have to make it from scratch just like they do back in Mexico, and that means higher prices.

According to Ricardo Lopez, owner of La Vaca Birria, “The food that you make in your pueblo back in Mexico, it’s very labor intensive. And the only way you get that here is at those fine dining restaurants, doing everything from scratch.”

I personally love Ricardo Lopez’s decision to focus on quality ingredients in his food, and yes if that means he has to raise the price of burritos and less people buy then that’s just simple economics 101. At the end of the day local customers are going to stick with what they love. I mean, maybe they only buy that burrito once a month, but the free PR from this story alone will probably have new customers lining up around the block to try his $22 burrito.

A $22 burrito? San Francisco restaurant owner says he’s keeping up with inflation