The Fold: BTB Burrito
The taco series returns to Ann Arbor for the campus counter that stays open when everyone else has gone home.
The mid-series rankings called it out directly: The Fold had not yet covered a late-night campus spot. Entry #6 fixes that.
BTB Burrito at 211 S State St is not a taqueria in the Tmaz sense, or in the Dos Hermanos sense, or in any of the senses the previous five entries established. It is a counter-service burrito shop in the student corridor, operating on the build-your-own format that Chipotle popularized and that dozens of college-town restaurants have borrowed since. The room is small. The line is efficient. The prices are low. That description makes BTB sound like a placeholder, and the series has already had its fill of tacos that overpromise on atmosphere and underdeliver on food. But BTB delivers something specific, and it is worth being precise about what that is.
The Tacos
The taco option at BTB follows the same build-your-own logic as everything else on the menu: flour or corn tortilla, protein, toppings, salsa. Two tacos will run you somewhere around $8 depending on the protein. That puts them at the lower end of the series, ahead of only Tmaz and El Rey on price.
The chicken tacos on corn tortillas are the fast-casual baseline: not al pastor with marinade built over days, not barbacoa braised for hours with dried chiles, just seasoned chicken assembled fast.
The salsas do more to set BTB apart than the protein does: a habanero option with real heat, and a tomatillo verde alongside it. That is more range than most fast-casual counters bother with.
The corn tortillas have the structural problem that corn tortillas at a fast-casual counter often have: they do not always hold through the full build. Ask for doubled tortillas. The kitchen will do it without complaint.
The 211 S State Street Version of a Taco
Here is the thing the series has to confront in Entry #6: BTB is a different kind of taco than anything that came before it. El Rey on Vernor Highway is tacos as a community institution, three generations deep. Tmaz on Packard is tacos as a serious late-night operation. Chela's in Dexter is tacos as a family tradition. Dos Hermanos is tacos as a scratch kitchen running on corn and commitment.
BTB on South State Street is tacos as a $9 meal for a person who has seventeen minutes and needs to eat before their 3 p.m. class. That is a real category, not a lesser one, and within it the execution is honest. The chicken tastes like it was seasoned on purpose. The salsas are not from a jar. The tortillas are not frozen and microwaved. At $8 to $9 for two tacos, you are getting what the price should buy, and then a little more.
The Hours Argument
The mid-series rankings flagged the gap directly: no entry in The Fold ran past 9 p.m. except Tmaz, open until 4 a.m. on weeknights. BTB doesn't match that. But its State Street and South University locations both stay open well into the evening, catching bar traffic and post-downtown foot traffic that Packard Street doesn't see in the same volume. The Fold needed an entry built for that stretch of the night, and BTB is it.
What BTB Is and Is Not
This is not the best taco in the series. That is still El Rey, where the barbacoa and the al pastor form the strongest one-two punch the series has found, and where the whole chicken dinner remains the best value any entry has produced. It is not the most distinctive. That is still the baked avocado at MAIZ, which no other entry would put on the menu. It is not the most tradition-forward. That is still Dos Hermanos, where the tortillas are pressed daily and the al pastor lets the pork taste like pork first.
What BTB is: the most accessible entry in the series, by geography and by price and by hours. No drive to Southwest Detroit. No inconvenient Dexter strip mall requiring a car. No cash-only situation. Two tacos on South State Street for under $9, built in ninety seconds, salsas with real range, open late. In a series that has ranged from a Vernor Highway institution to a birria-only Friday special, BTB represents something the series needed: the taco that is there when everything else is closed or far.
Where BTB Lands
Six entries in: Dos Hermanos for the tortillas, MAIZ for the ambition, Chela's for the birria, Tmaz for the al pastor and the 4 a.m. run, El Rey for the fire and the prices, BTB for the 10:30 p.m. on South State when the other five are not an option.
It is not a consolation placement. The series covers different problems, and the BTB problem, needing a taco right now, is a real one. BTB solves it honestly.
This is part of our ongoing series. Read the full tracker: The Fold: Best Taco in Ann Arbor.
BTB Burrito is at 211 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Also at 1140 S University Ave. Counter service. Cash and card accepted.