Street tacos loaded with cilantro and onion can be found at countless San Antonio taco spots. Credit: Unsplash /Jeswin Thomas

A new study ranks San Antonio as the nation’s No. 4 taco city, putting it behind Austin, which landed at the top of the list for two years in a row. Adding further insult, the Alamo City dropped two spots from its 2022 ranking in the report.

Before SA taco aficionados start shooting steam out of their ears, let’s take a look at where this data came from: mostly a bunch of online search data.

To determine the best taco cities, real estate company Clever analyzed data from online sites, including the number of taco spots per 100,000 residents, the average Yelp star rating of each city’s taco joints, taco restaurants per square mile and something called “taco passion.” That term refers to Google Trends scores for 23 taco-related terms, such as “tacos near me,” “taco truck” and “Taco Tuesday,” to name a few.

Notably absent, of course, were San Antonio’s historical significance as at the birthplace of Tex-Mex food, not to mention any assessment whether the tacos searched for in said communities were of legit family-run taqueria quality or the fast-food variety served out of a drive-thru window à la Taco Bell and Taco John.

So, take it all with a grain of salt — and maybe a little salsa too.

That now out of the way, Austin ranked as the best U.S. taco city, according to Clever’s criteria, since that metro had the highest percentage of restaurants identified as taco places: 7.4%. Meanwhile, San Jose, California, landed at No. 2 and Las Vegas at No. 3.

If there’s any consolation for San Antonio’s fourth-place finish, we boast five taco spots per 100,000 residents — with an average Yelp rating of 4.26, no less. What’s more, we came in on top for birria tacos, and also possess the most taco passion — the latter of which  likely comes as zero surprise to our taco-loving loyalists.

Pity Cleveland, Ohio, which had the worst showing. The Rust Belt town only has one taco place per 100,000 residents, 91% fewer than the average city’s 2.3.

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This article appears in Aug 9-22, 2023.

Nina Rangel uses nearly 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry to tell the stories of movers and shakers in the food scene in San Antonio. As the Food + Nightlife Editor for the San Antonio...