Best Budget Bites: $7.50 Taterito From Blue Door Pub

Did you know the Jucy Lucy bar has a rotating burrito special?

11:09 AM CDT on October 9, 2026

SEE NOTE ABOUT FRIES, WHICH WERE PRETTY GOOD, AT THE END.

|Jay Boller

The cost of things these days? Far too expensive! Tariffs, the Strait of Hormuz, rent prices, giddy price-gouging from proprietors large and small—the boring factors are too numerous to count. To protect our readers, Racket launched the Best Budget Bites series, where we’ll showcase a toothsome, wallet-friendly food item that’ll actually fill you up. Have a nomination? Hit us up: tips@racketmn.com.

What: Rotating menu of tateritos
Where: Blue Door Pub Longfellow (3448 42nd Ave. S., Minneapolis) & Blue Door Pub University (1514 Como Ave. SE, Minneapolis)
Cost: $7.50
Availability: Operating hours Tuesdays through Fridays (El Guapo-Rito available Thursdays)

Our Best Budget Bites series almost never enters the realm of specials, mostly due to their ephemeral nature—we want these posts to form an evergreen-ish encyclopedia of available cheap eats. (RIP to past entrants Sun Street Breads, Mi Mexico Querido, and Fast Eddie's Pizza; may we never speak of a BBB curse.)

With that throat-clearing outta the way, some LTOs are enduring and, thus, deserve the BBB treatment. Consider Blue Door Pub's taterito, which as the name suggests is a grilled burrito with tater tots replacing the rice. Our crack research team found that they've been on special since at least early 2025; the day-by-day taterito riff, along with other killer Blue Door deals, is viewable here.

Before we get into Thursday's tasty taterito offering, let's give it up for Blue Door Pub. Founded in 2008 by industry vets Jeremy Woerner and Pat McDonough, the mini-chain (once linked by four locations, now just two plus the airport outpost) has carved out an essential niche similar to Town Hall and The Nook/Shamrocks—solid scratch cooking, roomy interiors for families, fair prices. We need those types of places, the ones that exist somewhere between townie dives like Frenchman's Pub and slick corporations like TGI Fridays. My baby, whose photo will not appear in the pages of Racket despite my strong desire to share 'em, had a blast bopping around in her booth-adjacent highchair as other happy families munched away nearby.

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The marquee item at Blue Door, of course, is the Jucy Lucy that Guy Fieri himself once crammed into his outrageous food dude maw. We're not here to talk about that delicious burger. Instead, on Thursday, we dug into the $7.50 El Guapo-Rito, a medium-sized grilled burrito stuffed with (not-quite-enough) queso, generous deposits of nicely seasoned ground beef, pico de gallo, lettuce, (coulda-used-more) "guapo sauce," and (ditto) avocado sour cream. Those parenthetical quibbles setting off alarm bells? Don't sweat it—the El Guapo-Rito is rock-solid, though mine was a dry guy that coulda used a tub o' dippin' sauce. User error, as the kids say: I'll request a such a tub in the future.

In a sick, twisted world where a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme runs ya $5.69, Blue Door does ya right for $2 more with this filling, expertly tortilla-charred meal where even the tots maintain their crispiness. The taterito special, paired with a happy hour where you're scoring $2 off beers and wines? Keep the damn Strait of Hormuz closed, you're sitting pretty! (Editor's note: Please don't keep that strategic aquatic choke point closed—the global economy's on the brink and Best Budget Bites carries too much geopolitical influence for flip statements.)

And to the possibly imagined crowd who's eager to come at me, pitchforks hoisted and crying "but your lead image shows french fries, surely those put your meal over the ironclad BBB $10 threshold," I say this: I believe they were a couple bucks extra, meaning I still had a little wiggle room. Back off! (And thank you for reading.)