Lori Erlitz was on vacation and she deserved it. For most of the past decade, Erlitz could be found behind the tiny, colorful counter of Burrito Republic, a Mexican-American spot nestled in a pocket of Myrtle Avenue. By her own estimation, Erlitz was part of the “second wave” of businesses to take to the neighborhood in the years since locals remember the dearly departed brick oven pizzeria Houdini’s putting “Quooklyn” on the map. Like them, she had moved from Williamsburg, coming in just about a decade ago. At Burrito Republic, she established a counter that distinguished itself with a discerning palette, distantly cultivated on the West Coast but unique and stirring in its own right, her grilled fish burritos at home nowhere quite as fittingly than right here. In fact, Erlitz had been making a return trip to the West Coast, her first legitimate vacation in years, when equipment in Ridgewood started breaking down. The newly-bought refrigerator she got for the front — to keep the ingredients that Erlitz would pointedly make in house, in the early hours of every morning — had gone entirely kaputt. A week later, the same fate immediately befell the walk-in refrigerator in the back too. For at least a weekend, it was a disaster. The refrigerators could be replaced, and were, but the experience shook Erlitz. She had given up enough of her life to the Burrito Republic.
“The emotions are mixed,” Erlitz told me the other day. “I sold it, I’m done, but I don’t know. It’s hard for me. I have never had a break in my life, not since I was a kid. I think it’s time for me to have what everyone else had during COVID,” when the tightly packed kitchen had remained continuously open.
After living in the city for decades, operating no fewer than three bars in Williamsburg before making the move to Ridgewood, she wanted to “enjoy some of New York.” On Monday, the day after Burrito Republic wraps its final burrito, Erlitz told me she plans to take her employees on a final outing to Coney Island. “I want to remind myself of why I fell in love with the city,” she says, optimistically. On Sunday, she will host one last celebration for the concept, complete with a mariachi band and a commitment to cook every last inch to the sound of revelry.
For the last week, her Burrito Republic has been in a state of persistent mourning, each day marked on a chalkboard of how many days were left. In and out came the revenant, the appreciative, the bearded burrito enjoyer in a beanie who, upon learning the news, orders a large plastic bag’s worth that he carries out with both hands. Others come ready with their favorites and others still realizing that their only chance to make such a choice is now. The mood is unavoidably that of a wake.
The burritos — and the breakfast tacos, and the plates full of chips she bakes in the back, and the elaborate, thoughtful vegan versions of absolutely everything — developed a devoted following; enormous $15 helpings of cheese and perfect strips of steak, seasoned chicken or roasted cauliflower, or fish grilled the way she remembered it, wrapped with the love of a weekend latte artist, the sauces she makes every morning, one using a family recipe, and another one given to her by an old friend. “I went a little nuts with it,” she says, about the menu she expanded on during the pandemic to include at least nine different burritos, from the tinga-filled “Mission” to the warmly fried potatoes in the “Soo Cal,” a nod to the San Diego staple. In a city where taqueria trucks have perpetually remained one of last vestiges of New York street food, the quirky charms of the Burrito Republic stood out immediately and developed a devoted following.
“Nothing happened, I sold it,” she says adamantly to the concerned. (“I heard people say that Burrito Republic is closing, and I wouldn’t believe it until I saw the sign,” one tells her, voice cracking.) She’s heard the offers of starting GoFundMes and has batted them aside. For her, leaving the restaurant game in Ridgewood, now, felt deliberate. She had started out in 1998, running the Pourhouse in Williamsburg, since-shuttered too, which she calls one of the first bars to populate the now bar-cluttered neighborhood. She left in 2005 (“I got in a fight with my partners. They didn’t have the same work ethic I had, so I had to move on.”) and started two other bars nearby, first a small spot called Lola’s, where she put together a menu for the first time, a familiar mix of “Mexican, vegetarian and comfort.” After that was the Beaner Bar (I’m Mexican, so I can call it that. We were all Mexican, who owned it.”) and then, finally, reaching a perfect version of the form in a corner of Ridgewood.
“And people are like, ‘this is not how that’s supposed to happen.’ And I’m like, ‘but yeah, it is.’ I’m okay,” she says. “I feel like I was a big staple for people.”
It was her choice, she says, and in six weeks, the place will be transformed into a different restaurant still. (“Another food business. I don’t want to say it, but I want him to announce his new place, to have the excitement of the announcement. It’s not going to be Mexican. They’re going to open pretty quickly. I want him to have the fun of saying what he’s going to do.”)
It’s understandable, perhaps, that Erlitz doesn’t want to sic the local Burrito Republic appreciation society on whatever the future of the quiet plaza block might bring. “The city would be much less colorful without both Lori and Burrito Republic,” wrote a “hidden dining gems” columnist in New York Daily News in 2023, who celebrated even the charm of the “funky” earrings jewelry Erlitz would sell in the front, made by a local drag queen. That year had been peak Burrito Republic in retrospect; a local NBC affiliate would shoot a segment on the Day of the Dead celebrations Erlitz would host in the little plaza, filling the cubbyhole-sized spot with an enormous, collective altar. An Instagram account called lovinglocalnyc would shoot an informative, short reel about how Erlitz has “ spent years building a loving community of patrons that keep coming back.”
If a small, diligent taqueria spot was a welcome one in the neighborhood, her presence felt similarly fortuitous, down to the very block. Across the street was the miniature-Flatiron shaped Flowerama, the name of a wedding store that was now a differently named Korean grocer. “I got married a gazillion years ago, my first starter marriage, and I bought my first wedding dress there.” She had wandered in, years later, when it was the short-lived Little Coffee Shop, “and I felt like I really wanted this place,” she says. Less than five years later, it was her’s, every inch of it. In a week’s time, it wouldn’t be any longer. The street outside hummed quietly.
Burrito Republic was located at 59-15 71st Avenue.
Photos taken by Andrew Karpan.
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