Two months ago, in an attempt to incorporate the scientific axiom “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line” into his navigational choice, the Chester County Press reporter endeared to shave off a few minutes between his story assignments, and left Kennett Square toward Chadds Ford via Route 1.

It was a huge mistake.

From the moment he wove his way into the highway, he took up membership in a fraternity of drivers who were helpless to the congestion ahead as far as the eye could see. After a full 20 minutes of gas-pedal creeping, the reporter arrived at the reason for the delay that has slowed the course of his fellow drivers – and hundreds of thousands just like them - over the past few months. The project, located near the Onix Road-Route 1 traffic light, calls for the widening of Route 1 in order to make way for the construction of a 15,000-square-foot, four-building conglomerate that will install a massive convenience store, a bank, and urgent care facility…and a chain Mexican restaurant, a national brand that already has, to date, 147 locations in Pennsylvania, and carries a really nifty slogan that believes food has the power to change the world.

There are, as this newspaper goes to press, three-thousand eight hundred and thirty such restaurants with this name in the United States, and a recent check of its website reveals that every menu in every one of its stores is exactly the same and, as each location is bound to confine their menu to the same recipes, each item tastes more or less exactly the same, whether one visits a location in West Chester, Parkesburg or Doylestown.

Perhaps the largest insult of this chain’s decision to locate a new branch on Route 1 is not in further cultivating the Americanization of Mexican cuisine, but in its choice of location. When it opens, it will be mere minutes away from the rich heritage of a Hispanic community that has been enfolded into the heart and character of the Kennett Square community, and whose influence is seen and felt and experienced everywhere, from parades and art and history to the power of its people.

This is a community that has also endowed to Kennett Square the culinary tastes of its heritage, and each visit and each take-out order comes with the flavors of a country that honors its cuisine from the heart and considers food one of the several bounties of its culture. It is this simple gift of authenticity that chain restaurants can never give their customers, no matter how grand they lacquer up their identities with nods to various cultures. 

For those of us who truly embrace the gifts given to us by our friends and neighbors of the Mexican heritage, we offer you the following list, one to cherish and be nourished by.

Mexican restaurants in Kennett Square

El Poblano, 700 West Cypress Street, (484) 753-1639

El Ranchero, 305 West State Street, (610) 925-0122

El Rinconsito, 345 Scarlett Road, (484) 731-4114

Kaboburritos, 148 West State Street, (610) 880-6074

La Pena Mexicana, 609 West Cypress Street, (610) 925-2651

La Trailita Foods, 970 West Cypress Street, (484) 757-4011

Michoacana Grill, 201 South Union Street, (610) 444-8979

Panaderia y Taqueria Morelo, 835 West Cypress Street, (610) 444-0306

Plaza Azteca, 196 Onix Drive, (610) 347-1044

Red Sombrero, 879 East Baltimore Pike, (610) 925-3777

Taqueria y Carnicera Guadalajara Express, 520 South Union Street, (484) 348-4014