Pupuseria on Melrose With Crazy Pupusas: L.A. Pupusa House

Most of the pupuserias in Los Angeles stick to the classic trio of cheese, beans and chicharrón, and then there is the small family room on Melrose that calls itself the home of the crazy pupusas. L.A. Pupusa House, at 4814 Melrose Avenue in East Hollywood, presses pepperoni pizza, birria and shrimp into its masa next to the old standards, and it keeps a separate menu section just for those experiments. It is closed on Mondays and open the other six days.

The restaurant's own story page starts with Dina, the head cook. For 20 years she and her mother ran El Rinconcito Salvadoreño in Koreatown, and the family closed it in 2012. During trips back to El Salvador she noticed that pupusas there were being reinvented with flavors nobody in Los Angeles was serving, from garlic to pepperoni to Hawaiian. A decade later, Dina, her son Josh and the rest of the family decided to pick the business back up, and L.A. Pupusa House was born. The logo on the printed menu reads EST 2022.

The first home was a small spot on North Virgil Avenue. In April 2023 What Now Los Angeles reported the move to the current Melrose storefront, between Normandie and Western, where there is room for a full dining room as well as the takeout counter. When ABC7 profiled the family for Hispanic Heritage Month in September 2025, Josh Henriquez said the point was to bring a little piece of their country to Los Angeles, and the walls are hung with paintings from El Salvador to make that case before the food arrives.

The printed takeout menu splits pupusas into two lists. Las Clasicas covers the familiar fillings: revueltas, the pork, cheese and bean mix that most Salvadorans order without thinking, is $5.00, and queso con loroco, cheese studded with the green, slightly grassy flower bud, is $4.75. Any of them can be made with rice flour instead of corn masa for 50 cents more, the way many pupuserias in the region around Olocuilta still do it.

The Crazy Pupusas are where the family's travel notes show up. The pepperoni pizza pupusa, filled with cheese, pizza sauce and pepperoni, costs $5.75, and so does the quesa birria pupusa, which comes with a cup of consomé for dipping, a nod to the birria taco craze that took over Los Angeles. The Pacific pupusa, with shrimp, jalapeño, onion and cheese, is the most expensive single round at $6.50. ABC7 counted about 20 flavors in all, each served with salsa and curtido.

If you cannot decide between the two boards, the Pupusa Sampler is the answer. For $12 the kitchen makes four mini pupusas of your choice, which is enough to put a classic loroco next to a birria and a shrimp round and decide which one you will order full size next time. It is also the easiest way for a first-timer to taste the difference between a corn and a rice-flour masa.

At the other end is La Cachimbona, a 12-inch pupusa that the menu prices at $25 with a classic filling or $30 with one of the crazy fillings. It arrives sized for a table and gets cut like a pizza, which is part of the fun. The menu prints a 20 percent automatic gratuity for parties of six or more, so a big group splitting a Cachimbona should plan the tip into the bill rather than adding it again.

The antojitos are worth a second order. Yuca frita o cocida con chicharrón, fried or steamed cassava piled with fried pork chunks, is $17.00 and easily feeds two as a side. ABC7 singled out the yuca with deep-fried pork belly along with the Salvadoran enchiladas, which here are crisp tortillas loaded with toppings rather than rolled and sauced like the Mexican version.

For dessert the menu lists empanadas de leche o frijol, three sweet plantain pies filled with milk custard or sweetened beans, for $12.50. The drinks list leans traditional too: horchata is $5.00, and the hot atole de elote, a sweet corn drink that Salvadoran families make when the corn harvest comes in, is $5.50. Mornings bring a full Salvadoran breakfast menu, including El Cachimbon at $19.75 with eggs, grilled chorizo and casamiento, the rice and bean mix.

Hours on the official contact page are Tuesday through Friday from 10 am to 8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 9 am to 8 pm, with the restaurant closed on Monday. That one extra weekend hour matters, because the breakfast plates are the reason to come early on a Saturday, before the lunch crowd fills the tables. A weekday afternoon is the calmest time to work slowly through the crazy board.

The menu banner lists three ways to eat: dine in, take out and catering. Sitting down gets you table service in the family-run room, and takeout pupusas travel well if you ask for the curtido and salsa on the side. Catering orders run through a separate call and text line on the contact page. The site's reservation page is still placeholder text, so treat this as a walk-in restaurant.

Lemon Grove Recreation Center, the city park a few minutes' walk from the door, is a good place to sit down with a takeout box on a warm afternoon and watch the neighborhood go by. The streets between Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard are lined with the small bungalows and courtyard apartments that give East Hollywood its low, lived-in feel.

Walk east toward Vermont Avenue and you reach Los Angeles City College, whose campus has been part of this neighborhood since the 1920s. ABC7 reported that the restaurant teaches pupusa-making classes in partnership with the college, a fitting link for a family business built on handing recipes down. Head west along Melrose instead and the gates of Paramount Pictures, the last major studio still operating in Hollywood proper, are under a mile away.

L.A. Pupusa House is at 4814 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029, in East Hollywood. Hours: Tuesday to Friday 10 am to 8 pm, Saturday and Sunday 9 am to 8 pm, closed Monday. Prices from the printed menu: queso con loroco $4.75, revueltas $5.00, pepperoni pizza pupusa $5.75, Pacific shrimp pupusa $6.50, four-piece sampler $12, rice flour 50 cents extra. Metro Local Line 10 runs along Melrose, and the B Line's Vermont/Santa Monica station is roughly a mile away.