El Farolito

2779 Mission St, San Francisco, CA

Last updated 8/27/2026

El Farolito has run a 24-hour taqueria at the corner of Mission and 24th Street for decades, owned by Salvador Lopez and grown into a small Bay Area chain of roughly a dozen locations while keeping the original Mission storefront as the one most identified with the name. It's a cash-only counter — an ATM sits inside for anyone who forgets — that's stayed genuinely unpretentious even as its reputation has spread well past the neighborhood. The super burrito is the item most associated with the taqueria — a genuinely oversized, forearm-length burrito stuffed with meat, beans, and cheese — but the tacos built on small corn tortillas get just as much loyalty from regulars who prefer them to the more famous burrito. El Farolito's salsa bar has its own following, with a lighter, herb-forward green salsa built specifically to cut through the richness of the taqueria's slow-cooked meats. Being open around the clock has shaped the taqueria's identity as much as any single menu item: El Farolito is as much a late-night institution for people leaving Mission District bars as it is a lunch spot, a role few other taquerias on this list are built to fill given more conventional hours. Salvador Lopez's connection to San Francisco's Mission District runs beyond the restaurant itself — he's also the owner behind El Farolito Soccer Club, a well-regarded local team that's carried the taqueria's name into an entirely different arena of neighborhood pride. That crossover between a 24-hour taco counter and a competitive local soccer club is a distinctly Mission District kind of institution-building. For a San Francisco taco list, El Farolito is the essential "24-hour Mission institution" entry — corn tortilla tacos and forearm-length burritos served around the clock from a taqueria whose name extends well beyond its own counter.

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La Taqueria
La Taqueria opened on Mission Street in 1973, founded by Miguel Jara, who emigrated from Tijuana in 1961 and built the space out himself after deciding to open a taqueria that could recreate the food he missed from home. More than fifty years later, it's one of the most cited taquerias in the country, not just the Mission District, and it's stayed under the same family's ownership the entire time. The restaurant is credited — by Bon Appétit and other national food publications — with helping create the Mission-style burrito format itself: a large, foil-wrapped burrito built without rice, leaning on meat, beans, cheese, and salsa rather than filler to bulk up the portion. That same kitchen discipline carries over to the tacos, served on small corn tortillas with the same carefully cooked meats, without the rice-and-sour-cream additions that pad out many other taquerias' offerings. FiveThirtyEight named La Taqueria the best burrito in the country in 2014, and in 2017 the James Beard Foundation recognized it as one of "America's Classics," an honor specifically reserved for beloved, community-rooted restaurants rather than fine-dining destinations. That's a rare combination of data-driven ranking and institutional recognition for a counter-service taqueria that's never changed its basic format to chase either kind of attention. Half a century in the same Mission Street storefront, under the same family, with a no-rice format that arguably shaped how a huge share of American burritos and tacos are built today, makes La Taqueria a genuine category-definer rather than just a well-reviewed restaurant. For a San Francisco taco list, La Taqueria is the essential "this is where the format got defined" entry — corn tortilla tacos and rice-free burritos from the taqueria most directly credited with establishing Mission-style Mexican food as its own American tradition.
Taqueria Cancún
Taqueria Cancún first opened in 1991 on Market Street near 6th, founded by Gerardo Rico and Pedro Grande, who had worked together at El Farolito before deciding to open their own taqueria. From that original location, the pair expanded to additional Mission District storefronts, building Cancún into one of the neighborhood's other genuinely well-regarded taco counters rather than just a copycat of the shop where they'd learned the trade. The tacos follow the classic Mission street-taco format closely — small corn tortillas, quickly cooked meats, a straightforward build without excess garnish — the kind of no-frills execution that lets the quality of the meat and the griddle work carry the whole dish. Cancún's version has earned its own loyal following distinct from El Farolito's, evidence that the Mission has room for more than one taqueria built on a very similar format when the execution is genuinely good. That Rico and Grande's careers both trace back to time spent at El Farolito before striking out on their own says something about how much of San Francisco's taco scene has grown out of a fairly small, tightly connected community of Mission taquerias — competitors who trained under, or alongside, each other before building their own separate reputations. Cancún has stayed a genuine neighborhood counter rather than expanding into a citywide brand the way some of its Mission contemporaries have, a scale that's kept the format consistent across its handful of locations rather than diluting it. For a San Francisco taco list, Taqueria Cancún is the essential "trained at the best, built their own" entry — classic corn tortilla street tacos from two former El Farolito cooks who turned that training into their own respected Mission institution.
La Palma Mexicatessen
La Palma Mexicatessen has operated on 24th Street since 1953, making it one of the oldest continuously running Mexican businesses in the Mission District — a tortilleria and Latin American grocery first, with a small taco counter built around the same fresh masa and handmade tortillas the shop has produced daily for more than seventy years. The Castaño Ibarra family purchased the business in 1983 and has run it since, extending a legacy that already predated their ownership by three decades. The tacos here are built on tortillas made from the shop's own fresh-ground masa, pressed and cooked to order rather than trucked in from an outside supplier — a genuinely different foundation than most taquerias work with, since La Palma is fundamentally a tortilla maker that also happens to serve tacos, not a restaurant that happens to make its own tortillas as a selling point. That tortilleria-first identity extends across the whole shop: fresh tamales, prepared moles, and a full grocery selection of Latin American products share the space with the taco counter, giving La Palma a genuinely different feel from a dedicated taco stand — customers come through for groceries and staples as often as they come specifically for tacos. More than seventy years in the same Mission District storefront, under two long ownership stretches, with the fresh masa-and-tortilla production still happening on-site rather than outsourced, is a rare kind of continuity for any small food business, let alone one in a neighborhood that's seen as much change as the Mission has. For a San Francisco taco list, La Palma Mexicatessen is the essential "the tortilla comes first" entry — corn tortilla tacos built on masa made fresh daily by a business that's been doing exactly that since 1953.
Papalote Mexican Grill
Papalote Mexican Grill has served the Mission District from its 24th Street storefront since 1999, built around grilled, smoky flavors that set it apart from the more classically prepared meats found at many of the neighborhood's older taquerias. It's a newer entry relative to institutions like La Taqueria or El Farolito, but it's built its own devoted following over roughly a quarter-century in the same location. The restaurant's housemade roasted tomato salsa is the specific thing most closely tied to Papalote's reputation — a smoky, roasted salsa served to waiting customers that's become popular enough to be sold in retail stores across California under Papalote's own label, a genuine crossover from restaurant condiment to standalone product that few taquerias manage. The tacos themselves reflect that same grilled, smoky sensibility, corn tortillas filled with charred meats rather than the more straightforwardly braised or griddled preparations found elsewhere on this list. Papalote has expanded modestly beyond its original 24th Street location with a second San Francisco spot, but the Mission original remains the one most tied to the restaurant's identity and to the salsa that built its reputation in the first place. The retail salsa line, offered in original, serrano-tomatillo, habanero, and chipotle varieties, has let the flavor travel well beyond anyone actually visiting the restaurant. That a taqueria's condiment became successful enough to sit on grocery store shelves independently of the restaurant itself is a genuinely unusual arc, and it speaks to how distinctive Papalote's smoky salsa is relative to the more standard taqueria salsa bar. For a San Francisco taco list, Papalote Mexican Grill is the essential "the salsa became the brand" entry — grilled, smoky corn tortilla tacos from a Mission kitchen whose housemade salsa built a reputation well beyond its own counter.
Tacolicious
Tacolicious began in 2009 as a stand at the Thursday Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, founded by food writer Sara Deseran and her husband Joe Hargrave, whose childhood trips to Baja California and a later formative visit to Mexico City together shaped the couple's approach to Mexican food. What started as a weekly farmers-market stand grew into a full sit-down restaurant in the Marina, a considerably more polished format than the street-taco and taqueria-counter tradition that defines most of the rest of this list. That polish is deliberate: Tacolicious serves tacos in a full-service dining room with a genuine cocktail and tequila program, positioning itself closer to a destination Mexican restaurant than a quick counter order. The tortillas and fillings draw on the same regional Mexican traditions the founders encountered on their travels, but the format — a sit-down meal with table service — is a meaningful departure from the walk-up, eat-standing style of most Mission taquerias. Deseran's background as a food writer shows up in the restaurant's approach to menu development and storytelling; Tacolicious has published its own cookbook built around the restaurant's recipes, extending the brand well past its physical locations. From that original farmers-market stand, the concept has grown into five locations across the Bay Area, a rare kind of growth for a business that started with a folding table and a propane grill. That arc — market stand to full restaurant group with its own cookbook, in roughly fifteen years — makes Tacolicious a genuinely different kind of taco business than the multi-generational taquerias elsewhere on this list, and it gives San Francisco's taco scene a more composed, sit-down alternative to the counter-service tradition. For a San Francisco taco list, Tacolicious is the essential "market stand to restaurant group" entry — a full-service, cocktail-forward taco restaurant built by a food writer and her husband from a single farmers-market table.