Late-Late-Night Burritos

When all that’s left of brain break are cookie crumbs and stale bread, when Noch’s has closed its doors for the night, when one just can’t stomach those oily 7/11 sausages, and when a cup-o-noodles just won’t get the job done, the hungry Harvardian might be driven to the very precipice of despair. Until he realizes his salvation: that bastion of the burrito, king of the quesadilla, and redeemer of the ravenous undergraduate. Yes, the one and only Felipe’s.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Cambridge Licensing Commission (CLC), nor Felipe’s landlord, does not share the typical undergraduate’s view of the wildly popular Mexican eatery. Felipe’s recent application to the CLC for later closing hours (2 a.m. on weekdays and 4 a.m. on weekends) has stalled before ever really getting off the ground. According to CLC’s executive officer Elizabeth Y. Lint, the Commission is “highly unlikely” to extend Felipe’s hours, as the restaurant was recently caught selling a few burritos outside its doors at 2:15 am, in violation of its current permit. Furthermore, landlord John DiGiovanni is also unwilling, according to Felipe’s owners, to allow the restaurant to stay open later.

What the CLC has neglected to consider, however, sheds light on a puzzlingly rigid viewpoint. Often, Felipe’s has more customers at 2 a.m. than at midnight; when it closes its doors, students sometimes actually bang on the restaurant’s windowpanes until an employee furtively smuggles out a few quesadillas. And who can blame them for trying to satisfy a few hungry students? Additionally, as two new Dunster Street burger joints fire up their grills, we expect students to clamor outside their doors, too, if they close too early.

Though it may seem bizarre for the undergraduate community to become so upset over the closing hours of a single restaurant, we have little choice. When quality late-night food options can be counted on the fingers of one hand, ordinarily rational students become desperate. This is why an Undergraduate Council (UC) letter of support for Felipe’s application uses language such as “unprecedented” to describe the restaurant’s popularity. But even the UC’s efforts, it appears, will come to naught—the CLC has turned a deaf ear to student concerns. Sadly, this is all too unsurprising.

Currently, of the thousands of Harvard (not to mention MIT) undergraduates, a scarce few vote in Cambridge elections. The CLC and the Cambridge municipal government can afford to delude themselves into thinking that this is not a college town just because, for electoral purposes, it’s not. As long as undergraduates have the mindset that they’re just “passing through,” the Cambridge city government doesn’t have to take our concerns seriously.

Instead, we must rely upon the University to lobby on our behalf, and they should favor Felipe’s petition for later closing hours. The administration has already recognized undergraduates’ need for late night snack options in their planning for the Lamont café and Loker pub. But here, administrators have an enormous opportunity to reach out to a campus institution, a move that would also garner good will among the student population. At the very least, the University should make it a priority to improve House grilles and brain breaks.

There is clearly enormous demand for a later-closing Felipe’s—a petition last year drew 2,600 signatures. It’s not as if our much-loved Mexican restaurant would be the first establishment to be open into the early morning. In fact, there are businesses in Harvard Square that are open 24 hours per day, such as Au Bon Pain and 7/11­­, but their offerings don’t appeal to the student palette quite like quesdillas do. And since there are no residential establishments near any of these areas, the CLC, if only for consistency’s sake, should grant Felipe’s application.