State College’s newest Mexican eatery focuses on fresh ingredients, affordability

State College recently welcomed a new Mexican taqueria to the downtown dining scene, opening beneath Here State College this spring. A regional restaurant with outposts in Boston, Cambridge and Bethlehem, El Jefe’s Taqueria is known to set up shop in college towns.

According to Andreas Lysandropoulos, regional manager for El Jefe’s Taqueria, the restaurant’s business model meets many of the needs a college community faces.

“We’re able to accommodate a lot of needs for the people, the industry, the students themselves — help them stay up late and study. People that work in the industry, when they get out of work at two o’clock in the morning and there’s nowhere to go — having a really good, authentic meal at the end of the night helps,” he said.

El Jefe’s sets itself apart from other fast-casual Mexican restaurants in a few ways. Lysandropoulos chalks the growing brand’s success over the last six years, after it opened its first Massachusetts location in 2015, to four key components: fresh ingredients, free guacamole, an “extras aren’t extra” mantra and late hours.

“We produce shop about five to six days a week. We don’t have a single freezer in our store,” Lysandropoulos said. “We’re really, really fresh. We use the highest quality products that we can find.”

Then, he said, there are no surprises at the register.

“When we say the burrito is $9, it’s $9. ... We don’t limit how many items you can put in your bowl or your burrito. As long as you can fit it in there, we’ll make it go in there and we won’t charge you extra at the end,” Lysandropoulos said.

El Jefe’s Taqueria is open seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. — and if you stop by in the morning, you’ll be lucky enough to catch one of the menu’s hidden gems: breakfast. With Mexican breakfast burritos, huevos rancheros and even French toast on the menu, El Jefe’s is one of the few places you can go in Centre County and find Mexican-style breakfast every day, 8-11 a.m.

“People don’t know that we do breakfast. You can get the best huevos rancheros for $8.50, and they come with home fries, your choice of meat, eggs. It’s just really amazing,” Lysandropoulos said.

Of course, even with El Jefe’s proven and successful business model, opening a new restaurant during a pandemic is a challenge. A chain that caters to college communities, upon arriving in downtown State College in May, El Jefe’s found a lack of its core customers.

“We visited State College before the pandemic and during the pandemic quite a few times, and we knew what we were going to face: an empty town with a lot of challenges, a lot of restrictions,” Lysandropoulos said. “But we were able to do it. We opened the doors in May to get out there and introduce ourselves to the people that were left behind, introduce ourselves to the local community and be part of it and show our brand to them, and it was really helpful. A lot of the locals came out.”

As Lysandropoulos looks forward to welcoming Penn State students back for the fall semester, he has a few menu recommendations for students, parents and community members possibly stopping into El Jefe’s for the first time. His personal favorite menu items include the tacos and the fajita bowls. Tacos come three to an order and customers can choose from proteins such as sautéed shrimp, fried tilapia, grilled chicken, spicy pork sausage and more. The fajita bowl comes with three proteins, fajita veggies, hot and cold sides and three tortillas.

Learn more about El Jefe’s Taqueria at www.eljefestaqueria.com.