The Beer Store in Roxborough With Dazzling Tacos Hiding Inside
The Foodery in Roxborough used to have a deli counter inside. That's gone now. What took its place is something better: Tony Burritos.
From left: Beef birria tacos served at Tony Burritos inside the Foodery; beer cans for sale. / Photographs by Jauhien Sasnou
There is nobody inside when I roll in on a Friday afternoon, hungry and looking for tacos at the new Tony Burritos counter inside the Foodery.
Outside, two guys who look like extras from The Perfect Storm — hard hands, thick accents, wrapped up against a biting wind — stand laughing, sharing a cigarette. Inside, there are tap handles, a polished cement floor, and glass cooler doors behind which sleep 1,500 beers. The Foodery is a beer store with a sideline of beef jerky and Milky Way bars, boxes of pasta and bags of pork rinds. There used to be a deli counter inside. That’s gone now. What took its place is something better: Tony Burritos.
You can still feel the ghost of the old deli in Tony’s setup. The spaces on the walls that once held chalkboard descriptions of sandwiches are now inhabited by bright vinyl banners advertising tacos and nachos and street corn. The deli cases are still intact, but they now fill different uses. Everything about the place feels unsettled, like a new apartment furnished only with lawn chairs. Don’t let that fool you.
Tony Burrito’s serves, as its name suggests, burritos — thick as your arm, messy as hell, crisped in the oven to add some structure and filled with all the usual suspects — rice and beans, quesillo, pico and sour cream, avocado for $2 extra. The pork al pastor gets a little lost in the noise of blunt starches and soft textures, but the shrimp version is solid if you’re the sort of person who’s comfortable ordering a shrimp burrito from a beer store.
Unsurprisingly, I am that kind of person.
They’re not spectacular burritos — more chaos than harmony in the ingredients — but they’ll fill you up. Tony’s tacos, on the other hand, are gorgeous — doubled-up tortillas, soft and warm; pork carnitas, well-shredded, juicy with fat, topped with minced onions and chopped cilantro gone limp from the heat of the meat. On the side, a slice of lime lends a nice spike of acid and sweetness to the salt-slicked proteins. There are red and green salsas that I find disappointingly flat but also entirely unnecessary. Simplicity is key here. These tacos are like muscle cars turned out for dirt-track racing. They’re stripped of all affectation, made for speed.
In the front of the Foodery, I settle at a table by the windows to eat soft, cheesy birria tacos served with a cup of consommé spooned right out of the pot — glossy and warm and rich, almost saccharine. I slurp and don’t feel bad for a second. There’s no one around to hear me. And I walk out the door with a white Styrofoam box of churros open in one hand, already picking at the fried dough with my fingers, bag of tacos under my arm, stepping out of the quiet and back into the world.
2 Stars — Come if you’re in the neighborhood
Rating Key
0 stars: stay away
★: come if there are no other options
★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood
★★★: come from anywhere in Philly
★★★★: come from anywhere in America
Published as “A Beer Store to Remember” in the April 2023 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
