Female Green Burrito (So Cal) burrito champion

OCMexFood has a review of Green Burrito in La Habra, California which includes a picture of the restaurant’s burrito champion. The picture has the following caption:

This is a winner, who came to the GREEN BURRITO one lucky Saturday in November. Our winner ate three (3) Big Ed Burritos and claimed $300.00. The owner of the GREEN BURRITO could not believe that this little 130lb, 5’9″ girl really ate all three Big Ed Burritos. He challenged her. “Come back next Saturday, eat three Big Ed Burritos and I’ll give you $1000.00. If you cannot do it, you must return the first $300.00

SHE DID IT

Again – three Big Ed Burritos weighing over 7 lbs. [presumably total – not 7 lb. each] in less than 35 minutes and won $1,300.00. BELIEVE IT OR NOT!!

Reports about the burrito champion have been floating around the internet have been floating about the internet since at least 2001. No information is provided in the blog entry about the champion’s name or date of her challenges (it was probably in the 1980s based on the jacket style). The $300 award for finishing three Big Ed burritos has apparently not been available since Carl’s Jr. acquired the Green Burrito chain.

Comments (23)

23 Comments »

  1. Blog Fast Food » Blog Archive » Female Green Burrito (So Cal) burrito champion said

    April 28, 2009 @ 8:29 am

    […] Reports about the burrito champion have been floating around the internet have been floating about the internet since at least 2001. No information is provided in the blog entry about the champion’s name or date of her challenges (it … Go to Source […]

  2. Anonymous said

    March 31, 2011 @ 4:12 pm

    The picture above is, obviously, a photo of a photo. By my recollection, that picture hung in every Green Burrito. I’d seen it many times in the early 90s and never had been to one in La Habra, so there’s no way I could’ve seen it where this occurred.

  3. Time Warp said

    March 31, 2011 @ 5:47 pm

    Responding to a two year old post? I thought my computer was slow. Hey have you also heard that this guy named O’Bama may run for president and Jay Leno wants to get back on the Tonight Show.

  4. Jamminjoe3 said

    March 31, 2011 @ 6:32 pm

    wonder if she’s any relation to Mallory Roe

  5. Anonymous said

    November 21, 2011 @ 7:04 pm

    This happend back in the late 80s in Hawaiian gardens the 1st gb

  6. Green Burrito said

    February 28, 2012 @ 9:56 pm

    Anonymous said November 21, 2011 @ 7:04 pm is correct, this took place at the original “Big Eds” in Hawaiian Gardens. I believe the original place was called “Big Eds Burrito” and his brother created a spin-off called “Green Burrito” if the story is correct.

  7. troy wince said

    June 16, 2012 @ 4:34 pm

    i remember the big ed. at the green burrito in Downey ca.i think on firestone bl. in the 80’s a very good burrito i could barley eat the whole thing.carl’s jr. should sell then with real meat.not the product they use now.

  8. Naader Reda said

    June 16, 2012 @ 5:00 pm

    The Big Ed Burrito still exists. If you can find one of the standalone Green Burrito locations, such as the one in La Verne across from the movie theater, you can order it.

    Got one last year. They let you pick 2 different meats. Maybe they were bigger in the past, but in the current form no serious eater should have trouble packing in three of them.

  9. Donna B. said

    September 23, 2013 @ 1:28 am

    My husband was stationed at Long Beach in the early 90’s. The Big Ed THEN was made on two overlapping tortillas and was huge! We usually ordered one and split it. One time, close to delivering our daughter, I was able to eat one by myself. They were amazing!

  10. Rex said

    June 21, 2014 @ 11:59 am

    The girl in the photo is named Mona. Her original polaroid photo was in the original Green Burrito at 12006 Carson Street in Hawaiian Gardens, California. In the glass to the right of the ordering window there were dozens of other polaroids of people who tried to eat the 3 ‘Big Ed’ burritos and failed. My favorite was this gentlemen who was around 6-6 and weighed 350 pounds. He ate one and a half burritos and quit.

    The story is this: The big Ed Burrito was 2 1/2 pounds of Nerf-football-size heart attack. Two LARGE tortillas, beef, chicken, pork, beans, rice, cheese, lettuce, onions, tomatos, olives, quacamole, sour cream, cheese, sauce. Mona was at the time approximately140 pounds at 5-7 tall. She ate 3 Big Ed Burritos, won $300.00. The owner asked her to come back the next week and try it again; if she lost she would forfeit the $300.00, but if she won she would get $1000.00. She came back the next week and did it again. She even got her own little sign there next to the other photos: “Meet Mona”. That’s the photo you see above at the beginning of the post.

  11. Mike F said

    November 26, 2016 @ 8:47 pm

    I was around when the green burrito opened and remember Mona doing this. The owner of the green burrito (the gentleman in the picture could not believe it). If I remember
    coreectly it was in 1984 or 1985. There were many people that tried but she pulled it off and Ruben paid her the 1000 dollars. He was
    A great business man , a mentor and a man of his word.
    I wonder if she can still do it.

  12. ErikTheElectric said (Registered January 11, 2015)

    November 27, 2016 @ 1:15 am

    strong bump is strong

  13. PassatDoc said

    March 19, 2017 @ 9:32 pm

    Most of the Polaroid photos at the Hawaiian Gardens store were of losers (most of them north of 250 lbs), but there were a few other winners besides Mona, all of them men. One of the winners was a guy named Bobby Ray who stood 6’5″ and weighed about 350. He looked like he was quite pleased with his accomplishment. Mona was the only repeat winner.

  14. PassatDoc said

    March 19, 2017 @ 9:33 pm

    My visit to the Hawaiian Gardens location was in 1985-86, evidently a few years after Mona won her repeat prize.

  15. anonymous said

    March 20, 2017 @ 7:49 am

    Anyone remember Hawaii Kai in NYC? One of the great now defunct polynesian restaurants .
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgvMpoNOVRI

  16. Danny Henderson said

    September 25, 2017 @ 9:32 pm

    The first two original locations 1-Hawiian Gardens and 2. Cypress are still owned by the family of the original owners and founders. They still have the Big Ed challenge every Saturday afternoon from 2-4. Those are also the only stores that have ever held the challenge. Each Big Ed burrito weighs 31/2 pounds. I used to live across the street from the Hawiian Gardens store and would buy two Big Ed burritos to feed my whole family of four kids and two adults!
    Mona pulled off the challenge in 1983.

  17. Joseph Dorweiler said

    November 9, 2017 @ 10:07 am

    Troy Wince I lived in Downey in the 80’s and remember this as well. I looked this up only because of a trivia question about The Big Texan Steak Ranch reminded me of The Green Burrito.

  18. Richard Rose said

    February 23, 2018 @ 11:08 am

    I was working down there in the mid 80’s and was living in Cypress. I remember that challenge and hearing about the young lady that won it I remember wondering how anyone could win that challenge those things were huge.

  19. Marty McFly said

    February 23, 2018 @ 5:54 pm

    Strong bump

    Richard Rose, Welcome to 2018, fellow time traveler. How was 2009?

  20. Kina Barajas said

    January 4, 2019 @ 4:16 am

    They did the Big Ed Burrito Challenge at the Green Burrito
    In Huntington Beach too. I remember I used to go every day in summer when I was little 🙂

  21. Eric Cross said

    June 18, 2020 @ 12:59 am

    I remember as a kid, long before Green Burrito existed, that there was a restaurant called Senior Big Ed’s in Cypress, CA (still is) that had the “Big Ed” along with a challenge exactly like this. Green Burrito are thieves.

  22. Frankie Chambers said

    July 14, 2020 @ 3:27 pm

    love that place ,good burritos. When I was,stationed in longbeach cal.me and a close friend shared onethst was fun.

  23. Anonymous said

    April 20, 2021 @ 8:01 pm

    wasnt there one on chapman in el modena

RSS feed for comments on this post

Leave a Comment

Log in | Register | Comments by users who have not logged in will be held for approval