This Boston-Area Chain Is Just Like Chipotle — But Much Better

In the summer of 2019, I'd just moved to Boston for work, and I was completely new to the area. I was learning as I went — how to navigate the T, what a grinder was, and most importantly, where to eat as I got to know the city. A longtime friend from a Boston suburb invited me to meet him for lunch and introduced me to his favorite fast-casual Mexican restaurant: Anna's Taqueria. My first thought was that it was exactly like Chipotle, with a casual seating area on one side and counter service on the other. But the taste difference was immediately clear: Anna's food featured a richer, more intense flavor palate than Chipotle's nearly fast food menu. It tasted far more like a local Mexican joint than a national chain.

In some ways, that's true. Anna's is a Boston-area chain with around 15 locations, and unwittingly, I'd visited the original store in Brookline, Massachusetts (opened in 1995 and shuttered in 2020). It brought me back to a time years prior when I visited the original Chipotle in Denver, Colorado (also unintentionally) before the chain went national. Back then, it had a certain quirky charm that it lost as it expanded, and I was excited to find that same feeling at Anna's.

Chipotle started in 1993, just two years prior to Anna's. Both Chipotle founder Steve Ells and Anna's founder Mike Kamio cite the tradition of Mission-style burritos from San Francisco's Mission district as motivators for starting their own chains. Ells, who died in 2019, wanted to use the burrito shop to fund his dream of running a fine-dining restaurant, while Kamio worked in finance and simply saw a market opportunity when he moved to Boston.

The basic setup of an Anna's Taqueria is much like that of a Chipotle or other fast-casual restaurant. The menu's centerpiece is a Mission-style burrito — a Mexican dish actually invented in the U.S. that comes with rice, beans, salsa, meat, cheese, guacamole, and everything else you can load into an oversized tortilla. Bowls, tacos, and quesadillas are on offer, too. You'll also find some items that are absent from the larger chain's menu, such as birria and slow-cooked chicken ranchero.

Newer Anna's locations look a bit more upscale than the older, no-frills stores, with rustic brick walls, chandeliers, and Mexican-inspired tile work. One thing you'll find in all locations, harkening back to the days of the original Brookline shop, is a neon sign reading "Tacos & Burritos To Go." In other words, the ambiance isn't the big draw, although the restaurants are clean and pleasant.

Anna's is currently only in Boston and a few suburbs — including one Rhode Island location — but the chain continues to expand. That's in part due to its ownership by Streetlight Ventures, a private equity-backed restaurant operator which acquired Anna's from the Kamio family in 2023. Streetlight also owns the fast-casual chain B. Good, and some of its locations have become Anna's Taquerias.