To eat nearly anything while drunk at two in the morning is glorious. I have consumed pizza found in Dumpsters, whole loaves of bread, and, once, papier-mâché with absolute relish while under the spell that falls at this hour. It’s an experience best had socially, with people who make inspired additions to your mustard-on-paper-plate drawings and tell you when you’ve dropped part of your hot dog into your bike helmet.
In a town where so few restaurants are open late, most of my postmidnight drunken dining has been done on sidewalks. While there’s much to be said for the falafel trucks that quietly materialize when you’re regretting the purchase of a drink with Red Bull in it, there’s nothing like being in a restaurant at 2:00 a.m. after a Friday or Saturday night out. It’s like looking into the awkwardly overlapping dreams of a hundred strangers, one of whom for some reason picks the bacon off their potato skins and feeds it to you.
Open 24 hours a day, Memo’s Mexican Food in the University District provides chairs far more comfortable than the sidewalk outside Neighbours and an extensive selection of impressively low-priced dishes. There are three Memo’s locations, owned by two families from San Luis Potosí, Mexico—the U-District Memo’s is owned by the Osorias, and the Des Moines and Everett locations by the Pinal family. The two families ran another restaurant together in San Diego before relocating to the Northwest.
At Memo’s, you order at the counter like at Taco Bell; while the prices are only marginally higher, the quality of the food is far superior. This type of restaurant, known as a taco shop (and beloved by the poor, drunk, and hungry) in Southern California, is rare in the Northwest. It’s an ideal kind of place to have on the Ave, providing non-chain, super-cheap, alcohol-absorptive food all night long. (It’s an ideal kind of place to have anywhere, really.)
On a Saturday night, my friend Tom and I drank cartoon-sized tanks of Paulaner Oktoberfest at Die Bierstube, then headed to Memo’s in search of shredded-iceberg-
lettuce adventure. The place is vast and lit like a basketball court; at 2:16 a.m., the rows of hardwood booths were all packed, save one with a table covered in a damp lace of cheddar shreds and rice. Our closest neighbors were an elderly woman wearing a bracelet from Swedish Medical Center and a group of eight scooping up forkfuls of cheesy vegetables amid conversation about breast pumps.
The outside of the veggie burrito I ordered ($3.90) bore a worrisome resemblance to the paper bag it was served in, but biting into it exposed a heavenly mixture of juicy tomato pieces, shreds of lettuce, melted cheese, and appealingly salty refried beans. The burrito was nearly the size of a Duraflame log, but I wanted five. My dining companion was less impressed by his Combo #1 ($6.55), a beef taco and enchilada. I ate an orange thing I found in his refried beans, either a cheese-flavored carrot or carrot-flavored cheese. Whatever it was, I liked it.
I felt the same way about every aspect of being at Memo’s at 2:30 in the morning as I did about the orange thing. Nothing made sense, but the senselessness seemed completely appropriate. It was like discovering an aisle at QFC where everyone knows it’s okay to be naked. A semiconscious lady reclined on a bench while an aggressive make-out session took place near the cash register. Someone sitting behind us announced, “We have the coolest crack-house story—it involves masturbation and eating paint chips.” Most of the ladies at Memo’s were dressed like they arrived in stretch Hummers, with makeup resembling violently dismembered tropical birds. Most of the guys appeared to have spent the afternoon either watching a Huskies game or running around the playground making machine-gun noises.
We ordered more food. Tom opted for Combo #5 ($6.55), with two chicken tacos; I was enticed by a laminated photo of tater tots ($1.99). Tom expressed concern that his tacos were carved completely out of a single block of cheese, but agreed that the tater tots were perfect, hot, and greasy in just the right amount. It was now 3:00 a.m., and diners were drifting out the door. Tom and I soon followed them, avoiding a man wearing a Huskies lanyard who was making dancelike thrashing motions in the middle of the room.
When I returned to Memo’s on Monday afternoon, no one was in the dining area but a couple of Ave rats eating nachos and a lonely bottle of Vitaminwater. I ordered taquitos ($4.50); though the guacamole was good, during the day, the spell of Memo’s is broken. I will return during the hours when carrots and cheese are indistinguishable from each other and every flat surface becomes a dance floor. 
This review is so great I’m finding myself craving both cheese carrots and Huskeys fans which is strange because I’m vegan.
I think I’ll put my san diego burrito snobbery to the test.
especially if they will put french fries in my burrito, almost instant win.
En dos ocasiones, enchiladas crudos que me servimos, pero el burrito del pollo con arroz y habas era magnífico. ¿Uno compensa el otro?
WANT.
I’m confused. Why is that taco in a hard shell? And why does it have a pound of grated cheddar cheese on top of it? I don’t think you’ll be getting those in LA.
@6 You can still get tacos that look like that in L.A. The difference is that there are many, many places offering better tacos than that in L.A.
The market for Americanized Mexican food doesn’t disappear in areas with large Latino populations, it just faces more competition from “authentic” establishements.
that place is almost always completely empty
If this place were around when I was a teenager, I probably would’ve eaten half my meals there. I doubt it’s great, but it would’a been a welcome addition to the ultra-shitty late-night dining options Seattle had when I was growing up. Except you, old Nightlight. You and your $3 grilled cheese with fries are missed.
@7, it faces increasing competition here, too, which is why I’m confused to see them on a new place on the Ave. I know college students can’t always just hop in the car and head to Burien, but really. Even Chilpotle’s doesn’t serve ’em like that.
The first time I ate at Memo’s, it sucked. I tried it again based upon the positive reviews. Nope, still sucks. Admittedly I was sober both times.
I don’t particularly think I’d like the food at Memo’s but I think this review is enchanting. And I really hope I never find an aisle like that at QFC.
The article failed to mention that the bathroom often smells overwhelmingly of urine. Sometimes, when the large “Ave” facing windows are closed, the stench of urine creeps into the whole establishment. This is one of the few places left in America today where you can order a burrtio and smell urine at the same time. A kid named Spanky sells boxes of stolen candy out of the kitchen…Father Joe knows this and told him to stop but he won’t listen, because of this they want to kill Spanky dead.
Memo’s is my favorite place to hang and watch “Posey” creep up and down the Ave. People be jackin people’s lighters right in front of the Jack in the Box, and you can watch while you chow on the free carrots/cilantro/pepper mix (the article failed to mention this as well).
@13 – “This is one of the few places left in America today where you can order a burrito and smell urine at the same time.”
I wish that were true.
The article failed to mention that the bathroom often smells overwhelmingly of urine. Sometimes when the “Ave.” facing windows are closed the smell of pee creeps into the whole establishment. This has got to be one of the last places in America where you can order a burrito and smell piss at the same time. A boy named Spanky sells boxes of stolen candybars out of the kitchen’s storage room. Father Joe knows this and told Spanky to stop, but he doesn’t listen, and now a rival gang wants to kill him dead.
Memo’s has a nice vantage point of the “Posey” that run up and down the ave. I like to sit wathing the “Posey” jack people’s lighters in front of the Jack in the Box, while I chow down the complimentary carrot/pepper/cilantro mix (the article failed to mention this as well).
ew… are you people fucking kidding me? That place is GROSS. There is no amount of cheap that can make up for the greasy cardboard food they serve. Mi charritos is so much better as to not be even in the same category of food. Oh, wait, they are only open during normal restaurant business hours.
THIS is the kind of place Frenchie Intern should be checking out.
I live in the U Dist and I’d eat Memos everyday if I didn’t mind gaining 200lbs and getting Type 2 diabetes. I love it!
every time the stranger writes anything at all tagentially related to the university of washington, there are ALWAYS cheap shots like the following. your jealousy of people your age who are able to get in to a university is so obvious
“Most of the ladies at Memo’s were dressed like they arrived in stretch Hummers, with makeup resembling violently dismembered tropical birds. Most of the guys appeared to have spent the afternoon either watching a Huskies game or running around the playground making machine-gun noises.
“
It’s San Diego Mexican food (the owner grew up working Aliberto’s in SD). Not representative of true Mexican food (from Mexico or LA), yet VERY enjoyable and awesome to have available in Seattle. I recommend the Chile Relleno burrito (hold the lettuce) and Chips w/Guacamole.
best meal to get at Memo’s – tater tots with cheese and sour cream. amaaaaazing.
@19: I went to school with the author of this article. She graduated from UW a couple of years ago.
honestly, the food is kinda terrible, but with late-night dining choices few and far between in this town, memo’s is far superior to 7-11 when im fucked up at 3 am.
@19 – you’re right about the cheap shots, and you have no sense of humor. i totally snarfed when i read that.
I had never eaten at Memos, but walked passed many times thinking that i should at least give it a try. Tonight I finally did, going by after work (about 3 am) to get a carne asada burrito. I am neither sober (a plus i guess) or a college student (a minus i guess) but this was hands down the worst 2/3rds of a burrito i’ve ever eaten in my life. Maybe its my fault for assuming that when it says “Carne asada burrito(guac+salsa)” that it meant guac+salsa IN ADDITION to other tasty things. Nope. the burrito was prison grade meat, something even taco bell would be embarrassed to call guacamole, and a couple of diced tomatoes, which i guess pass for salsa nowdays. It was cheap ($4.95 i think) and was made in about 30 seconds, but neither of those things come close to outweighing the fact that the “food” was nearly inedible. Maybe the food there is exponentially better during the day (it must be if this place is still in business), but if your biggest selling point is that you’re open 24 hours, then you should be able to produce food at 3 am at least reasonably close to what you produce at 3 pm. If you’re looking for a place to eat mexican, and its before 1am, for the love of god, go to royal. its a block away, its 3 dollars more, but its about a billion and a half times better food than the slop i just put into my body. Now if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to save myself the trouble tomorrow and force myself to throw up the “burrito” i just ate.
I had never eaten at Memos, but walked passed many times thinking that i should at least give it a try. Tonight I finally did, going by after work (about 3 am) to get a carne asada burrito. I am neither sober (a plus i guess) or a college student (a minus i guess) but this was hands down the worst 2/3rds of a burrito i’ve ever eaten in my life. Maybe its my fault for assuming that when it says “Carne asada burrito(guac+salsa)” that it meant guac+salsa IN ADDITION to other tasty things. Nope. the burrito was prison grade meat, something even taco bell would be embarrassed to call guacamole, and a couple of diced tomatoes, which i guess pass for salsa nowdays. It was cheap ($4.95 i think) and was made in about 30 seconds, but neither of those things come close to outweighing the fact that the “food” was nearly inedible. Maybe the food there is exponentially better during the day (it must be if this place is still in business), but if your biggest selling point is that you’re open 24 hours, then you should be able to produce food at 3 am at least reasonably close to what you produce at 3 pm. If you’re looking for a place to eat mexican, and its before 1am, for the love of god, go to royal. its a block away, its 3 dollars more, but its about a billion and a half times better food than the slop i just put into my body. Now if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to save myself the trouble tomorrow and force myself to throw up the “burrito” i just ate.