Oaxacan Restaurant Near Me in the Mission: Café de Olla's Tlayudas

A named tlayuda at Café de Olla costs $16, and the Oaxacan hot chocolate next to it is $6. The café sits at 3388 19th Street, on the corner of 19th and Mission in San Francisco, a short walk from the 16th Street Mission BART station. If you searched oaxacan restaurant near me from the Mission, this is the counter the San Francisco Chronicle called the city's best Oaxacan restaurant in January 2026, and it opens at 11 am most days.

Café de Olla began on December 11, 2019, as a stand inside El Mercadito, the small vendor market at the Mission Economic Development Agency's Plaza Adelante on Mission Street, as Mission Local reported at the time. The owners are chef Eduardo Antonio, who was born in Oaxaca, and Francisco Camacho, who is from Guerrero. The two met in the 1990s through GELAAM, a support group for gay Latino immigrants.

The business survived the pandemic as a pickup window. In March 2023 it moved into the former Bissap Baobab space at 3388 19th Street, which gave Antonio a bigger kitchen, room for breakfast dishes and a wine license, according to the SF Standard. The official site says the menu comes from Antonio's family recipes, and the house line is printed in Spanish: Todos son bienvenidos aquí.

The tlayuda is the reason to come. The Chronicle's critic Cesar Hernandez described a giant blue corn tortilla brushed with asiento, the rendered pork fat used in Oaxaca, then layered with black beans and shredded quesillo, and wrote that the tortilla tasted like popcorn. On the official Square menu the Tinga, Chorizo and Enchilada versions are each $16, built on beans, quesillo and cabbage.

The cheapest way in is the Chapulines and Tlayuda plate at $12, which pairs the tortilla with toasted grasshoppers. Antonio imports cheese, herbs, chapulines and the chocolate for his mole from Oaxaca, so the grasshoppers here are the real thing, salty and lime-sharp. If the plate wins you over, a container of chapulines to take home is $7 on the same menu.

Memelas start at $9: a thick handmade tortilla topped with beans, salsa, onion and queso fresco, with meat costing extra. The tamales run from $6.50 and include chicken in mole, pork in chileajo, beans with yerba santa and a vegetarian chepil version. The kitchen makes its corn tortillas by hand every day, which is why the quesadilla, from $11 with stringy quesillo, is better than the word quesadilla suggests.

An honest call: skip the drip coffee and the latte. They are fine, but you can get those anywhere on Mission Street. Order the café de olla itself, $4 for a regular, brewed with cinnamon and piloncillo in the Oaxacan style. The beans come from Proyecto Diaz, a roaster owned by Oaxaca native Fernando Diaz, according to the SF Standard's 2023 report on the move.

The Oax Chocolate costs $6 and arrives frothed with a wooden molinillo, the carved whisk you roll between your palms. The Chronicle noted that it is hand-mixed at your table, so do not be surprised when someone comes over with a stick and starts spinning. Champurrado, the thicker corn-masa chocolate drink, is also $6. Order one of each if two of you are sharing.

Bags of the house chocolate sell for $12 if you want to make it at home, and a conchas pastry is $4 for something sweet on the side. For a hot afternoon, tepache, the fermented pineapple drink, is $6 and agua fresca is $5.50. Those prices come from the café's official Square ordering page, which was last updated in September 2026.

Camacho told the SF Standard in 2023 that a lot of young gay Latinos come in while they are discovering their roots, and the owners describe the café as immigrant-owned and LGBTQ-owned. On a weekday lunch you will also see Mission office workers ordering at the counter, plus neighbors picking up online orders. There is no table service and no reservation system. You order at the counter, pay and find a seat.

The official Square ordering page lists pickup times of 11 am to 7:30 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 am to 9:30 pm on Thursday and Friday, 10 am to 9:30 pm on Saturday and 10 am to 2:30 pm on Sunday. Monday is closed. Saturday morning is the only time a long line forms, so come right at 10 am or after 2 pm.

If the line reaches the door and you are short on time, place a pickup order on the Square site and eat in Dolores Park instead. If you arrive on a Monday, Donaji at 3161 24th Street is the other Mission kitchen run by an Oaxaca-born chef, but it only opens Wednesday through Saturday evenings, so on a Monday the better plan is to come back on Tuesday at 11 am.

From the café, walk west on 19th Street past Valencia and Guerrero. In about ten minutes you reach Mission Dolores Park, which runs from 18th to 20th Streets along Dolores Street. The upper slope on the southwest side has the downtown skyline view, and on a warm Saturday it fills with picnics by noon. A tlayuda carried in foil holds up well for that walk.

Walk back down 18th Street and you pass the Mission's best-known blocks for food: Tartine Bakery at 600 Guerrero Street and the Bi-Rite Market at 3639 18th Street. Back on Mission Street, the 16th Street BART station is three and a half blocks north of the café, and the 14 and 49 Muni buses run along Mission Street past the front door.

Address: Café de Olla, 3388 19th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, at Mission Street. Email: cafedeollasf@gmail.com. Transit: 16th Street Mission BART, about three and a half blocks north, or 24th Street Mission BART, five blocks south. Pickup hours on the official ordering page: Tuesday to Sunday, closed Monday. Service: order at the counter, no reservations, online pickup available.

Prices from the official Square menu: named tlayudas $16, Chapulines and Tlayuda $12, memela from $9, tamales from $6.50, Oax Chocolate $6, champurrado $6, café de olla $4, chapulines container $7. A $0.50 credit card fee is listed. The tamales are made with vegan masa, so ask at the counter which fillings are vegetarian that day. Ask the Karpo APP for a park picnic plan or a mural walk near 19th Street before you go.