Giving Norman the Bird

Recently, I was informed of the impending opening of Freebirds World Burrito on Campus Corner (across the street from Carson Engineering Center) in Norman - I think by my grad student friend Danny who attended Texas A&M for his undergrad (the first Freebirds location in Texas opened in College Station in 1990). He didn't know when it was opening or where it was to be located. In a recent conversation with Janice, I mentioned Freebirds was coming. Qdoba is also scheduled to invade Norman soon, although not in such close proximity to my school office.

In a strange convergence of events, Janice saw an add for Freebirds and relayed to me that the first 10 people in line on Monday morning when they open at 11 AM would receive free burritos for a year (actually, they receive 52 cards for free burritos ... a $400 value because they allow you to use them on the Monster burritos ... although not on the Super Monsters). Also, the first 100 people would receive a free burrito and a free t-shirt that says ... well, you can see and read (I hope).

We drove by Campus Corner yesterday to scope things out. After finding it, tucked away in a corner just north of Boyd on the west side of Asp, we saw that there were people in tents outside. Our hopes of being in the first 10 were dashed, although I didn't really have any major aspirations to be in that crew (although I wouldn't have minded the free burritos). In fact, we weren't sure if we'd even make the top 100.

After waking up and walking the dogs, we left home about 10:30 this morning in search of free burritos, half expecting to find a long line and prepared to wait out the initial surge (and actually pay for food) at Carson while I do some work. We were excited to find an open parking space in close proximity to Freebirds and we saw that the line wasn't too long. While I didn't count the number of people, I thought it was well short of 100. So, Jenn got in line and I took off jogging down Asp to get Danny (he's a Freebirds fan like I'm a Chipotle fan). We returned 5 minutes later (about 10:45) to wait in line ... and our cutting in line didn't cause a stir because it didn't bump anyone from the top 100. I estimated there were just over 60 people in front of us, and we heard a guy counting as he walked by and we were in the high 60's ... pretty good for showing up 20 minutes before the opening.

Freebirds is different than Chipotle and Qdoba in a few ways, but is definitely a high-quality burrito. First, they have four different sizes, including the super monster that uses two huge tortillas. Second, they have 4 different kinds of tortillas: flour, wheat, spinach (which is green) and cayenne (which is light red). They only have steak, chicken and veggie and lack the variety of salsas - which is a little disappointing. They have refried beans, jalapenos, and red and white onions and a variety of sauces that are similar to tabasco. Freebirds has spanish rice, instead of white, but it's pretty good spanish rice, not mushy like a lot of places have. Also, they have multiple kinds of cheese and also have queso, alhtough I don't really care about all of that.

I got a steak monster burrito on flour tortilla with black beans, rice, bbq sauce, the two hottest sauces (though the lady didn't put enough on - although they have it in bottles so you can add it yourself) and lettuce. While it isn't Chipotle, it was a high-quality burrito and I'm sure I'll be back at Freebirds in the not-too-distant future.