Democracy Dies in Darkness

Taco Bell makes a great crunch wrap. This D.C. bar makes it better.

Jaren Morrow’s weekly crunch wrap residency packs the house at Jackie Lee’s in Brightwood on Tuesday nights.

Review by
The crunch wrap with shrimp. (Rey Lopez for The Washington Post)
6 min

On Tuesday nights, you can feel a buzz building inside Jackie Lee’s bar before you take your first sip of mezcal Negroni.

That’s when the good-natured Brightwood tavern turns its kitchen over to Jaren Morrow and his Kennedy Street Tacos. While other watering holes may expect business to dip on a school night early in the week, Jackie Lee’s regularly fills up with a cross-section of Northwest Washington to taste Morrow’s take on Taco Bell’s cult-hit Crunchwrap Supreme. Born as a pandemic pop-up, KST has endured and evolved into a weekly “residency,” also serving fried naan chalupas, plantain-stuffed burritos and deep-fried “fiesta” potatoes, among other things.