Mexican culture, and consequently Mexican food, is widely popular and accessible in the United States, according to data from a recent analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center.

According to the published report, “Although especially common in California and Texas, Mexican restaurants are found in a large majority of counties in the U.S. Some 37.2 million people in the U.S. trace their ancestry to Mexico, making Mexican Americans by far the largest Hispanic origin group in the nation”.

A staggering 85 percent of counties have at least one Mexican restaurant, allowing the vast majority of residents (except for about 4 million people in the smaller counties who do not have Mexican restaurants, i.e., only 1 percent of the country's total population) to enjoy this cuisine without the need to cross national, state, or local lines, according to the report.

The analysis is based on data from SafeGraph, a curator of global location data, and restaurant review site Yelp, as well as county-level population estimates from the American Community Survey.

According to the survey, “Mexican restaurants are most common in California and Texas. These two states, which are home to a majority of the Mexican American population, have around 40% of all Mexican restaurants in the country: 22% are in California, while 17% are in Texas”.

Of the more than 80,000 Mexican restaurants, most are concentrated in the states of California, Texas, Illinois, New York and Florida, with 51% of these establishments located in these states.

The survey also highlights the overrepresentation of Mexican food compared to other Hispanic cuisines in the U.S. Although people of Mexican origin make up the majority of Latinos in the country, there are another 40% who claim another Hispanic origin and only 2% of restaurants use Hispanic or Latino cuisine that is not Mexican.

The geographic distribution of Mexican restaurants varies, being most common in the Southwest, especially California and Texas, which have the largest Hispanic populations. The survey mentions specific numbers, such as the 5,484 Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles County, highlighting the diversity of this cuisine in different regions of the U.S.

“The most common types of non-Mexican Hispanic restaurants include Caribbean, Cuban, “Latin American,” Peruvian, Salvadoran and Spanish restaurants. But none makes up more than 1% of restaurants nationwide. (There are other types of Hispanic restaurants in addition to these, but they each make up 0.1% or less of restaurants nationwide and are not included in this analysis)”.

Additionally, the analysis briefly touches on the issue of pricing, noting that most Mexican food establishments listed on Yelp are affordably priced.

While the research does not delve into the authenticity of Mexican food, it does use tags from SafeGraph and Yelp datasets to categorize restaurants. The analysis concludes by making a comparison with a previous study on Asian restaurants in the U.S., highlighting the diversity and prevalence of these culinary options in the country.