If You're Not Serving Free Chips and Salsa, You're Not a Mexican Restaurant
You're just an overpriced restaurant with tacos
When I was a kid growing up on the West Coast, I always looked forward to eating in Mexican restaurants. Because I knew as soon as I sat down, I’d be greeted with a hearty “Buenos dias, senor!” and a basket of chips and salsa so big it could, in a pinch, play shooting guard for the Sacramento Kings.
When I moved to Miami, like any good transplant I complained about the lack of good Mexican food, insisting California’s was better because of our tap water, which was filtered with carne asada. The waiters stared at me blankly, because all they knew how to say in English was, “More chips?”
Even those pretty-awful Mexican restaurants gave you free chips and salsa as soon as you sat down, and would sometimes follow you outside to give you another basket of chips after you left. Sadly, that practice is dying.
“Upscale” Mexican Means No Chips For You
Flash forward to 2026, and this year has seen as many new Mexican restaurants come to Miami as it has live-streaming influencers, which is to say, over three trillion. Almost none of them* serve free chips and salsa, greeting me only with a “Have you dined with us before?” and judgment for ordering tap water.
One Mexican restaurant billed itself as “authentic,” so authentic its other locations were in the historic Mexican cities of Brooklyn and Toronto. It offered chips and a “trio of salsas” for $11, which actually seemed cheap when listed after the $28 guacamole con estafa, served with authentic Mexican truffle and caviar.
Nobody in the history of Mexican restaurants has ever gotten in their car and said, “Boy I can’t wait to sit down to a big plate of aguachile!”
The “chips” were three tortillas that, from what I could tell, were cooked sometime in 1962. The trio of salsas came with unpronounceable names like “Quetzlpultapec,” served in shot glasses with spoons so tiny they looked more appropriate for the bathroom.
The idea, the waiter told me, was to hammer off a shard of tortilla, then spoon a droplet of salsa on top. Which, to me, sounded like he was telling me to slice open the middle of my mouth then pour battery acid on top. Apparently, this restaurant’s idea of “authentic” Mexican food involved a cartel kidnapping.
It was fine, and about as satisfying as a 2-for-1 lap dance.
We Don’t Want Wagyu Tacos. We Want Free Chips and Salsa
Why were they serving this instead of what literally everyone in the restaurant wanted: A big, free basket of tortilla chips and fresh tomato salsa? Yes, creative recipes with quality ingredients are nice. But nobody in the history of Mexican restaurants has ever gotten in their car and said, “Boy I can’t wait to sit down to a big plate of aguachile!” Like it or not, Mexican food in America means starting off with a giant basket of free chips and salsa, and anything less than that doesn’t deserve your business.
“Oye, gordo!” a VC-backed hospitality group might say. “Do you know anything about restaurant economics? We can’t just be handing out free chips anymore. That $15 million buildout doesn’t pay for itself!”
Clearly, some of you never ruined your lunch by eating three baskets of chips at Lucy’s Guadalajara, and it shows. If you had, you’d know that by serving an 8-year-old’s body weight in chips and salsa, you can get away with serving 12 grains of rice and a chicken wing for an entree. Nobody will complain, because we’re all fat and happy on chips and salsa. Just cut your portions in half, serve more chips, and we all win.
Mexican food in America means starting off with a giant basket of free chips and salsa, and anything less than that doesn’t deserve your business.
Somehow, places charging $34 for a wagyu burrito nobody asked for can’t afford to dish out free chips and salsa? But a family-run hole-in-the-wall in a Sweetwater strip mall can? This is the restaurant equivalent of when the Ritz-Carlton charged $29.99 a day for Wi-Fi, but somehow down at the Super 8 it was free.
In this highly competitive world of Miami Mexican restaurants, there’s a way to ensure standing out: Bring back free chips and salsa. Otherwise, you’re just another “global fusion” restaurant that happens to serve some interesting chili peppers. And I’ll be spending my hard-earned pesos somewhere that still understands hospitality.
*Shoutout to The Mexican, A+ free chips and salsa