Tortilla by tortilla, the Maize staff has collectively gained a significant amount of weight since the August 2013 opening of the restaurant’s second location at 116 North Chestnut Street in Champaign.
Why, you ask?
No one is visiting the restaurant’s second location in Downtown Champaign. Perhaps it’s the glint of the sunlight on the windows that causes the space to appear empty, or the fact that owner Armando Sandoval has forgotten to unlock the front doors, but patrons have not be patronizing the Mexican joint, thereby leading to an extreme excess of food and ingredients. “I just keep waiting for someone to come inside and order some tacos,” an anonymous staff member recently told me. “I keep walking from the door to the window, all the while eating a handful of tortilla chips or a torta on each pass.”
The restaurant’s staff isn’t the only thing to change shape and size over the last year and a half. The huitlacoche has become even more smutty and fungus-y. (It’s not exactly clear if huitlacoche ages like a fine wine, or just turns to a poisonous mush like the swamp of sadness in The Neverending Story.) The squash blossoms? They’ve grown into squash.
Readers, I implore you to visit Maize’s second location at 116 North Chestnut Street in Champaign. There’s no need to wait in the painfully long lines at the 60 East Green Street location; there are plenty of available tables at the second location.