Adobe In & Out – Fulton Street

• 617 W. Fulton Street
• Grand Rapids, MI 49504
• (616) 454-0279
• No Known Website
• Menu

I have a strange relationship with Mexican food.  For a good portion of my live (27 years out of 30), my only experience was Taco Bell or Taco Johns.  The debate in our house was which fast food taco joint we were going to go to.

A few years ago, I got brave and took J to a Mexican place in Lansing.  I instantly fell in love with the bold flavors and spicy sauces.  I still like my imitation Mexican food though and always look for good alternatives to Taco Bell since we don’t have any Taco Johns here in West Michigan.

The first place I’ve found in Grand Rapids is a local chain called Adobe In & Out.  They have four stores in the Grand Rapids area.  The one I drove by as I was driving around town was the location on the corner of Fulton and Lexington just west of Grand Valley State’s downtown campus. 

The building looks like it could have housed one of the national franchise in a previous life.  It has a shape that reminds you of Southwest architecture and they use a green and red color scheme on accent strips and decor.

The building is set up like a fast food joint with an order counter in front of the kitchen and a separate dining room off to the side.  The menu consists of the usual suspects.  I was just in the mood for some tacos.  They come in the option of either hard or soft shell and with beef or chicken.  I ordered four hard shell beef tacos to go.  The price is a little more than Taco Bell coming in at $1.50 per taco, so the four of them set me back a little over six bucks.

After paying the tab, my tacos were put together back in the kitchen, wrapped up and placed into a paper sack with two containers of hot sauce.

When I got back to work, I found a taco shell overflowing with ingredients.  Unlike the cheaper competitors, the shells are actually filled all the way to the top.  Most of that is cheese, but at least it’s filling.  The tacos also came with lettuce and tomatoes although there wasn’t much of either.

The four tacos were actually pretty filling thanks to the large amount of cheese in each taco shell.  The meat was pretty wet which I actually like so that did affect the integrity of the shells, but it was not something that was a big deal to me.  I ate the tacos so fast it didn’t make much of a difference.

Adobe In & Out is not a bad alternative although it is going to set you back a few more bucks than the competition.  I felt I got more food than I would have if I had gone somewhere else.  They’re not authentic Mexican, but if you’re happy with the American bastardization of Mexican food, and I am, Adobe delivers

Hardshell Beef Taco

Hardshell Beef Taco