Charlotte, NCBurritos

A build-your-own Tex-Mex counter at 301 South Tryon Street that has fed Uptown workers for twenty-seven years, open weekday lunch only. When Axios put the city's burritos on a scale, the Big burrito here came out heaviest of the lot, a foil-wrapped brick of rice, beans, meat and whatever else you point at down the line.

A strip-mall counter at 2904 Yorkmont Road open for lunch only, eleven until two thirty, which means the line is warehouse and airport workers on a clock. The number eight burrito and the Lazy Burrito are the orders, both built big enough that the second half usually comes home in the bag.

A converted house at 715 Providence Road with a patio and a tequila list, cooking street tacos, fajitas and burritos. It was one of four stops in the Axios burrito weigh-in, and the kitchen sends its burritos out heavy enough to hold their own against counters built purely for volume.

An East Charlotte cantina at 2917 Central Avenue, open since 2010, where the menu follows the cooks' hometowns through Puebla, Jalisco and Veracruz. The burritos come out oversized and sauced, and the regional plates around them are why the room fills with people who did not come for the wrapper.