Mexican restaurants now a staple in Seattle
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Once a city with limited Mexican food options, Seattle now boasts hundreds of Mexican restaurants, reflecting a broader national trend.
Why it matters: The proliferation of Mexican restaurants — once staples only of the Southwest and parts of the Midwest — highlights the growing influence of Mexican Americans on U.S. culture and the effects of increased migration from Mexico over the last 30 years.
State of play: About 99% of Americans live near at least one Mexican restaurant, a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from SafeGraph has found.
Zoom in: King County had more than 600 Mexican restaurants in 2023 — about 2.7 for every 10,000 residents, per the SafeGraph data.
- Seattle has nearly 400, including several standouts recommended by Eater Seattle:
- El Catrin on 15th in White Center.
- D' La Santa on Capitol Hill.
- Jackalope Tex-Mex & Cantina in Columbia City.
- Pancita, with Janet Becerra, a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.
The big picture: About 37.2 million people in the U.S. trace their ancestry to Mexico, making Mexican Americans by far the largest Hispanic origin group in the nation, per the Pew Research Center.
- They represent 11% of the total U.S. population and could surpass Black Americans, who represent 12.5% of the nation's population, in the next decade.
- About 85% of U.S. counties have at least one Mexican restaurant.
The intrigue: The 15% of counties without any Mexican restaurants have only 4 million total people living in them — 1% of the U.S. population.
What they're saying: "Anywhere you find people, you are probably going to find a Mexican restaurant serving them food," Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center's director of Data Labs, tells Axios.