An exterior view of El Faro at 2399 Folsom St. in San Francisco.
Andrew D./Yelp
A storied, 65-year-old San Francisco taqueria — one that lays claim to being the inventor of the super burrito, or Mission-style burrito — is up for sale after the landlord doubled the rent.
El Faro, at 2399 Folsom St. in San Francisco’s Mission District, is currently for sale, according to owners Raymunda Ramirez and Patrick Kocourek. The rent was recently raised from $3,250 to $7,500, according to Laura Kocourek, stepdaughter of owner Ramirez. The restaurant is currently listed on Facebook Marketplace for $225,000. But the owners are looking at the possibility of hiring a broker in the near future.
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“Ideally, it would be someone who could keep the doors open,” Laura told SFGATE in an interview. “[Raymunda is] really just trying to avoid going bankrupt and having to end the legacy in that way.”
The restaurant was founded in 1961 by Febronio Ontiveros. He allegedly made the first super burrito — a forearm-sized torpedo with rice, beans, salsa, meat, guacamole and sour cream — for nearby firefighters who came in looking for sandwiches. Determined not to disappoint them, he wrapped all of the ingredients in three overlapping 6-inch tortillas to fit everything inside. Nearby La Cumbre also claims to be the inventor of the Mission-style burrito.
Over the years, Ontiveros opened several other El Faro shops across the Bay Area, including the now-shuttered location on First Street in downtown San Francisco and two more in Concord and South San Francisco. In 1999, when Ontiveros became ill, he passed the restaurants on to his children, according to Laura. They all operate independently of each other, she explained, and the Concord and South San Francisco locations remain open.
An interior view of El Faro at 2399 Folsom St. in San Francisco.
Jennifer Nicole G./Yelp
Raymunda started as an employee at El Faro in 1979. In 2006, she bought the original location, on Folsom Street, from the Ontiveros family and brought back the original recipes, she told SFGATE. But in 2024, disaster struck in the form of three separate burglaries. In total, the damage cost Raymunda and Patrick around $25,000, nearly $20,000 of which they were able to recoup through a GoFundMe.
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However, the donations did not really replenish their savings, according to Laura, as $5,000 went to replacing their smashed windows and the rest went to buying and installing iron bars over the windows to prevent future break-ins.
“To her, those burglaries felt like a personal attack,” Laura said. “She’s like, ‘I give people free food when they have no money because it’s my community, how could they do this to me?’”
To make matters worse, Raymunda underwent a full knee replacement late last year, which was costly, according to Laura.
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“If you saw her at the restaurant, like, the last three years, she was literally hobbling around,” she said.
Last month, the family put up another GoFundMe hoping to get them through one more month of rent, Laura said. So far, it’s only raised $700. The unfortunate reality is that the restaurant might only be open for another month, at best, according to Laura.
A staple in the Mission for decades, it was granted legacy status in 2024 by the city of San Francisco. Laura said Raymunda is “depressed” by the reality that is sinking in.
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“She gets her social interaction there because she was working six days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. but now she can’t,” Laura said. “Raymunda at home and Raymunda at the restaurant are like two different people.”