Allsup's convenience store with famous burritos opens near Texas-New Mexico stateline

• Allsup's, the beloved convenience-store chain born about 60 years ago in rural New Mexico, has opened a store on El Paso's edge in Chaparral, New Mexico.
• Allsup's is known for its signature food item, the Allsup's burrito, which has become a cultural icon in New Mexico and Texas.
• The new store is part of the rapid expansion by Allsup's parent company, Yesway, which has become one of the nation's largest convenience-store chains.

El Pasoans who hanker for Allsup’s famous deep-fried burritos can satisfy the craving without driving to Las Cruces or Lubbock.

The iconic convenience-store/gas station chain, with roots in rural New Mexico, opened its newest store Tuesday, March 25, on the edge of El Paso, just inside Chaparral, New Mexico.

It sits on several acres of what had been a mostly lonely corner at 1510 State Line Road and an increasingly busy stretch of U.S. Highway 54. It’s next to an Alamo Fireworks Megastore, across the highway from the Edge of Texas Steakhouse, and not far from the edge of El Paso's Northeast city limit. It's also not far from the site where Facebook operator, Meta Platforms Inc., is expected to build a huge data center.

It’s part of the rapid expansion of Yesway, a 10-year-old company now based in Fort Worth. It became a big convenience-store industry player in November 2019 when it acquired the Allsup’s chain, then with 304 stores.

Yesway now has 441 stores in nine states, and growing, making it the 19th largest convenience store chain in the United States, according to the latest ranking by the trade publication CSP.

Most of its stores are Allsup’s branded stores in New Mexico and Texas. Only 70 stores bear the Yesway brand, and those are primarily in several other states in the West and Midwest.

Yesway uses Allsup's rural model to grow

“Most of our portfolio tends to be rural, small town stores at good intersections of highways. That’s been the Allsup’s model really since it was founded 60 years ago (in Clovis, New Mexico by Lonnie and Barbara Allsup). And after all the research and homework we’ve done, we’ve continued in our new-build platform identifying those same types of opportunities,” said Thomas Brown.

He’s Yesway’s chief real estate officer and also president and director of real estate acquisitions for Brookwood Financial Partners, a Boston-area investment firm that formed Yesway in late 2015. Brookwood mostly owns and manages a large portfolio of shopping centers and office buildings nationwide.

Brookwood formed Gas & Convenience Funds to create the Yesway brand to acquire and operate a portfolio of gas stations in select suburban and rural locations in the U.S.

While Allsup’s for years has operated stores in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, many of its locations, and now Yesway’s locations, operate in rural areas without grocery stores. Brown noted.

“We do really well being the grocery provider for a lot of these small towns in which we operate,” Brown said. “They (customers) aren’t going to do their weekly shopping there,” but the stores, besides selling a lot of gasoline, sell a lot of bread, eggs, and milk, he said.

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27 million Allsup's burritos sold annually

The chain, including the Yesway-branded stores, also sells a lot of Allsup’s famous burritos — more than 27 million a year, according to the company.

It recently added two new burritos — buffalo chicken and bacon breakfast — to its previous lineup: the original beef and bean, the Hatch green chile cheese, and the beef or chicken Chimichanga, or Chimi.

All Allsup’s burritos technically are chimichangas, deep-fried burritos born in Arizona, according to the Food Network.

Allsup's burritos born in deep-fryer 'accident'

Allsup’s version was born by accident in 1974 when baked burritos at an Allsup’s in Clovis, New Mexico, ended up in a donut deep fryer and became an instant hit with customers, according to the company.

Sometimes referred to as “gut bombs," the burritos are loved by many and derided by some — not unlike the popular rolled tacos at another regional icon, El Paso’s Chico’s Tacos.

The burritos have become ingrained in New Mexico and Texas culture. They are featured in paintings by New Mexico artist Daniel McCoy Jr., and the subject of a song by Texas singer/songwriter Aaron LaCombe.

Food service platforms have become important for the convenience-store industry, and that often includes having a signature food item, such as the Allsup’s burrito, Brown said.

2 more Allsup's coming to Las Cruces

Yesway's plans are to continue to grow through construction of new stores in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma for now, and future acquisitions, he said.

It opened 21 new stores in 2024, including Allsup’s first Las Cruces location, and plans to open about 16 stores in 2025, including two more in Las Cruces, Brown said.

Yesway may explore adding Allsup’s on the eastern and western edges of El Paso County in the future, he said.

Yesway officials explored buying the 249-store DK chain when it was for sale in 2024. But the convenience stores, including 77 in El Paso and about 25 in New Mexico, were too small and too old to fit Yesway's expansion model, Brown said. Mexico’s huge Oxxo chain bought the DK stores in October and plans to eventually rebrand them to Oxxo.

No expansion is currently planned for Yesway-branded stores, mostly located in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. A handful of Yesway-branded stores in Texas will be remodeled and rebranded as Allsup’s in the future, Brown said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter, now known as X.