{"id":11821,"date":"2026-07-21T20:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11821"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:16:08","slug":"battle-of-the-burrito-bowls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/battle-of-the-burrito-bowls\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the burrito bowls"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are two Tex-Mex burrito bowl spots in downtown Evanston: Chipotle, and just a minute’s walk away, DosBros Fresh Mexican Grill, a franchise with locations across the Midwest and South. Many cherubs, having tried both, have strong opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t love the Chipotle here,\u201d said Ryder Bingaman of Evanston, who usually orders a half-steak, half-chicken bowl. \u201cThe portion sizes are a little depressing, I\u2019m not going to lie. You don\u2019t get a lot of meat, but they for some reason load you up on lettuce and rice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, Bingaman said Evanston\u2019s Chipotle is consistent and reliable in quality. However, he said he prefers Skokie\u2019s Chipotle because of its comparatively generous portion sizes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also of Evanston, Charlie Edwards, who usually orders a steak bowl with reluctance, called Evanston\u2019s Chipotle \u201cthe most disgusting Chipotle\u201d on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been out of forks before,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cThere are usually like two options at least on the fountain machine that are out. Terrible portions. I mean, I\u2019ll still go because it\u2019s a Chipotle, but it is the worst one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, both residents and cherubs visiting Evanston say DosBros isn\u2019t a clear alternative.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDosBros Fresh Mexican Grill is OK,\u201d Bingaman said. \u201cI think it either hits or it\u2019s the worst thing I\u2019ve ever put in my mouth. It will sometimes hit so hard that you want to keep going there, but it will also sometimes taste like throw up and you never want to go there again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Without tax, a chicken bowl with free toppings at DosBros is $12.85. At Chipotle, it\u2019s $8.45. For cherubs like Bingaman, the difference in price is too big to justify.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t go there as much because it\u2019s expensive,\u201d Bingaman said. \u201cWhen it doesn\u2019t hit, you\u2019re paying a lot of money for something that\u2019s pretty trash.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On portions, though, DosBros is the obvious winner, said Bingaman and Eva Saraf of Statham, Georgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that I kind of hate with Chipotle is sometimes, at least where I\u2019m from, you get what my friends and I call dwarf burritos,\u201d said Saraf, a burrito-orderer \u201cThat didn\u2019t happen at DosBros the one time that I\u2019ve been there, so maybe they\u2019re more consistent with their burrito sizes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little expensive, but they do give you good portion sizes,\u201d Bingaman said. \u201cThey give you a good meat-to-rice ratio. I would say Chipotle is like a three-to-one, whereas I\u2019d say DosBros Fresh Mexican is like a two-to-one to even sometimes a one-to-one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

DosBros offers a 10% discount for Northwestern students, which cherubs can also enjoy, as advertised on a poster outside the store, bringing DosBros and Chipotle closer in price.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite that discount, many cherubs are loyal to Chipotle above all others. Sihan Liu of Tibet first tried Chipotle in 2023 while attending school in Colorado and loved it. When he moved back home, he couldn\u2019t find a suitable replacement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been obsessed with Chipotle steak for a long time,\u201d Liu said, \u201cand I\u2019ve never found a comparison to Chipotle steak.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Liu described DosBros\u2019 food as \u201cpretty good,\u201d but said it can\u2019t stack up to Chipotle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost people call Chipotle a Mexican food,\u201d Liu said. \u201cI don\u2019t think so. I think Chipotle is a food spirit. It\u2019s a different style of food. It\u2019s like the food I\u2019ve never seen in my entire life before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cherubs are divided on the two burrito-bowl spots downtown, Chipotle and DosBros Fresh Mexican Grill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":11289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,19],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[700],"class_list":["post-11821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","category-living-in-evanston"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":700,"user_id":350,"is_guest":0,"slug":"seibert26","display_name":"Nathaniel Seibert","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c01d41f2bea50f2cbd8d1ad55208b7df8d79ab02d8eb1a0baf22d9a309114572?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Seibert","first_name":"Nathaniel","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11821"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12947,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11821\/revisions\/12947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11821"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}