In San Francisco, corner stores are one of the lifelines of a neighborhood. They provide dry goods, snacks, medicine and much more. Some of the best in the city, your Freddie’s in North Beach or McBaker Market near Divisadero Street, double as delis. It’s not far-fetched to say that the best sandwiches in the city likely come from a local liquor store.
But out in the Excelsior, an often-overlooked neighborhood, one corner store doubles as a taqueria – and it’s known for killer crispy carnitas that rival the city’s best.
Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado, at 544 Excelsior Ave., is one of the few corner stores in San Francisco that serves as a bastion of Mexican food, not turkey on Dutch crunch. To the people of the Excelsior, Don Chuy’s is well known – it’s not uncommon to see a line of cars double-parked out front while someone goes in to order a carne asada burrito, carnitas torta or garlic shrimp quesadilla. For the uninitiated, it’s worth getting in your car or hopping on Muni to take a trip to the southern part of San Francisco to see what all the fuss is about.
“I get people from the Peninsula, from Antioch and Pittsburg, they come back to here (the neighborhood) and they say, ‘Chuy, can you open another store near us? We can’t get any Mexican food like this,'” said owner Gil Antonio Figueroa in an interview with SFGATE.
Gil Figueroa, the owner of Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, poses with his carnitas torta on Feb. 25, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
The building perched near the top of a hill, with a view of western San Francisco, has been some form of grocery market since the late 1940s. Back then, it was called Garnero & Harris Groceteria. Over the years, it changed hands and through the 1990s it was called Azteca Market, according to Figueroa, which is when the taqueria was first installed in the back. Since 2002, when Figueroa bought the store, it’s been affectionately known as Don Chuy’s – Figueroa’s nickname.
When you walk up to the garnet-colored store with yellow bricks around the front entrance, you can’t help but be struck by the mural painted on the side of the building. In the foreground, men play the congas and women dance to the music. A golden eagle devours a snake, similar to the image on the flag of Mexico. The numbers 544 are above the wooden door reminiscent of a Spanish mission. In the background sit Victorian houses and the skyline of downtown San Francisco with the Transamerica Pyramid. It’s like a short history book of Latino existence in the Excelsior, a neighborhood that was predominantly Latino from the 1990s to the 2010s. Today, it’s considered one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco, according to Francine Stephens, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Stanford.
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Once inside, you’ll see stocky Figueroa at the cash register, usually wearing a flat-brimmed baseball cap with his silver chain exposed over a T-shirt. Standing behind the plexiglass that was installed during the pandemic, he blasts some form of Latin music as he rings up customers who have purchased beer, chips or a burrito the size of a forearm ($12.75 for a regular and $14.99 for a super). He calls everyone “bro.” And the smells inside the store are unmistakable – juicy carne asada, earthy beans and fresh pico de gallo salsa.
A carnitas torta, one of the specialties of the taqueria inside Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado, a corner store in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, on Feb. 25, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
As you walk toward the back, past the refrigerators, a hand-painted menu hangs above the rectangular chafing dishes keeping the food hot. And you know it’s a good sign when the taquero asks if you want the crispy parts of the carnitas or the softer, fattier cuts.
Truly, the carnitas at Don Chuy’s are revelatory. They stack up against some of the city’s more well-known taquerias, including El Metate, El Buen Sabor and La Taqueria. You can hear the crunch when the taquero clasps a sizable portion with his tongs before spreading them out over the rice and beans. Like all good carnitas, they are salty with a subtle unctuousness giving off that slightly sweet pork flavor. Figueroa said they are cooked low and slow daily, in only pork fat, for four hours.
Figueroa, who arrived in San Francisco from El Salvador in 1980, kept the menu from Azteca Market. The carnitas and carne asada are still the most popular orders, he said. While burritos are a San Francisco staple, Figueroa’s go-to order is a carnitas torta, which really combines the corner-store-meets-deli-meets-taqueria aesthetic.
“I try not to eat it every day because of my health, you know?” he said, with a laugh.
Gil Figueroa, the owner of Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado, works behind the counter of the corner store in the Excelsior District of San Francisco on Feb. 25, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
As a former line cook in places across the city like Fog City Diner, the Hotel Monaco before it became the Marker, and the W Hotel, Figueroa was curious about adding Salvadorean items to the menu about a decade ago. He said that the pupusas never caught on, unfortunately, but his garlic shrimp is still on the menu today.
“When I came here everything was already good, so why change it?” he said.
Julia Cabrales grew up in the neighborhood. She moved back when her parents left her their house and now she helps raise her grandson who also lives in the Excelsior. She’s been going to Don Chuy’s for two decades, almost since Figueroa took over. On a recent Wednesday at lunch, she got the beef stew special.
“Everything that they cook is good. I get something new every time I’m here because I know it’s gonna be good,” Cabrales said.
The doormat at the entrance of Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado, a corner store in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, on Feb. 25, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Don Chuy’s is a store that represents the people of the mostly working-class Excelsior. A lot of construction workers come in for lunch, and dinner is when people from the neighborhood walk over and chat up Figueroa while they wait for their food, he said. There’s a sense of community just like at any good corner store in the city.
But in June 2024, the store was robbed. Since Figueroa lives in the unit above his store, he could hear when the thieves broke open the front door. He wanted to go confront them but his wife pleaded with him not to. They stole the ATM machine and the money in the cash register – in total about $15,000. While the police never reached back out with an update, according to Figueroa, he was thankful for the support his neighbors showed by coming more often and tipping more.
“They came in and helped me, bro,” he said. “I couldn’t have come back like that without them.”
Gil Figueroa, the owner of Don Chuy’s Mexi-Mercado in the Excelsior District of San Francisco, works behind the counter of the corner store on Feb. 25, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
The neighborly love keeps Figueroa going. That and the carnitas.
“As long as I have life, I’m going to stay here, bro,” he said.
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This article originally published at The SF corner store cooking up stellar burritos instead of sandwiches.