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.

Article continues below this ad

“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.

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.

Don't let........

© SFGate