You’ve prob­a­bly heard the news: Chipo­tle is open­ing up one of their chain bur­rito places over in Uptown. Some of you are cel­e­brat­ing this. Some of you are mourn­ing this. Per­haps some of you are par­tic­i­pat­ing in both the cel­e­bra­tion and the mourn­ing process.

We have always been a pro­po­nent of the totally local (or at least locally started) over the chain. We even sup­port local chains — Dion’s, Il Vicino, Blake’s, even the Fly­ing Star con­glom­er­a­tion. Why? Because they were started in Burque.

And we get Chipo­tle, we do. When you’re in a town that pro­nounces that spice as “chipoltay”, it’s prob­a­bly the clos­est you’re going to get to end­ing those crav­ings for green chile with­out hav­ing your mom ship you a $200 pack­age of Sadie’s salsa. And yes, Chipo­tle builds a dif­fer­ent kind of bur­rito from Dos Her­manos or the Bur­rito Lady. (Although per­haps the term “wrap” is more apt, at least from the stand­point of purely New Mex­i­can cuisine.)

Sure, they sup­port local farms. They appear to have a hip, cool cor­po­rate ethos, pos­si­bly stem­ming from their roots in nearby Den­ver. They’re like Ben & Jerry’s, but with bur­ri­tos (wraps! We mean wraps!). And they serve a seem­ingly “healthy” option to reg­u­lar fried fast food.

But they were basi­cally owned by McDonald’s for almost a decade. So what if they sup­port local farms and give healthy food and even cre­ate a few small jobs for work­ers here in Albu­querque? The money you pay for each of these bur­ri­tos doesn’t stay local. It’s just another cor­po­rate megabeast offer­ing some­thing you can get almost any­where else, with­out adding to our already col­or­ful local culture.

New Mex­ico was the last south­west­ern state (read: state wherein you should be able to get really authen­tic bur­ri­tos) to resist the Chipo­tle urge. Take a deep breath and think about that. Are we more cos­mopoli­tan now that we have a Chipo­tle? (FYI — Farm­ing­ton already has a Qdoba. We love Farm­ing­ton, but not because it’s super cosmopolitan.)

There’s some­thing to be said for liv­ing in a place where you have to crave a national chain because the local food trumps it. Hand­made tor­tillas, green chile, carne adovada, cal­abac­i­tas — these are all authen­ti­cally New Mex­i­can tastes that Chipo­tle has never pro­vided, and never will. When we leave New Mex­ico, we sub­sti­tute Chipo­tle for those home­grown tastes because we’re forced to. When we come home, Chipo­tle couldn’t be fur­ther from our minds.

That is exactly why we doubt that the grand open­ing will put too much of a dent in sales at any of our favorite bur­rito places. It’s not like Taco Bell is killing the break­fast bur­rito busi­ness at the Fron­tier. Still, we’re pour­ing one out for the fact that Albu­querque is another fallen domino in the race for giant cor­po­ra­tions to take over our lit­tle food lives.

Go on and eat your Chipo­tle bur­rito. Just remem­ber your true Burqueño eater­ies twice as often.