The Happiest Hour: Early Birds Get the Breakfast Burrito at Onefold

The phrase “happy hour” has been linked to drinking since at least Prohibition, when speakeasies would host pre-dinner cocktail hours for parched patrons. It’s now so synonymous with cheap drinks that it’s hard to fathom partaking in this post-work ritual without throwing a couple back. The proliferation of hefty happy-hour food menus is merely a bonus.

But perhaps that’s too narrow of a frame. Any discounted sort of ingestible makes me happy, and there’s some special joy in finding a cut-rate meal outside of traditional happy hours. I suspect this is why Taco Tuesdays are so popular.

If you come at happy hour with that mindset, you can partake in a full happy day and make your way through one long orgy of feasting in this town. Between liquid lunches and extended and late-night happy hours, there’s plenty of opportunity to avoid ever paying full price. There’s even at least one happy-hour breakfast: Onefold’s breakfast burrito happy hour, which runs from 7 to 9 a.m. on weekdays and nets you that dish for $5.

Those of you scoffing at that price tag — yes, we know this town is flooded with cheap breakfast burritos — should know that a) $5 is a significant discount on the regularly priced burrito, which rings in at $12, and b) what you get is quite a bit heftier than what you’d pick up at a drive-thru.

Onefold has always focused on doing just a few things really well, and the burrito is no exception. If you’re a meat-eater, order the regular breakfast burrito, for which a stretchy and durable housemade tortilla swaddles griddle-scrambled eggs, asadero cheese, a heat-kissed green chile and blissfully crispy duck-fat-fried potatoes. We’d go for the chorizo option, which adds both pepper and intense savoriness, but you can also stuff your burrito with bacon or sausage. Vegetarians get an olive-oil tortilla (the original is made with lard) and beans and hash browns instead of the duck-fat spuds and meat. And vegans can sub tofu and hold the cheese. Regardless of your order, you’ll be served a burrito about the size and density of a Nerf football — enough to make you happy for two meals.

Oh, and you can smother your burrito with green chile for an extra $2.25; the version here packs nice verdant heat and boasts both the clarity of New Mexican-style and the voluptuousness of a more Colorado-style gravy. It’s certainly worth trying, but if you’re feeling cheap, the burrito absolutely stands alone without it.

With all the doctors and nurses wandering in after long shifts at St. Joe’s Hospital across the street, there’s also a subtle nod here to the tradition of accommodating workers coming off night shifts with early-morning beers. You can get those and more spirited drinks at Onefold — just not at happy-hour prices. For those of you who work day jobs, bottomless coffee is a better bet.