Mission Pupuseria for Soccer Fans Since 1987: Balompié Cafe

Balompié Cafe #1, at 3349 18th St, has held the corner of 18th and Capp Streets in the Mission since 1987. The name tells you what to expect: balompié is a Spanish word for football, built from balón, ball, and pie, foot, and the restaurant's two big TVs play nothing but soccer. Underneath the matches is one of San Francisco's longest-running Salvadoran kitchens, with most pupusas priced at $4.75.

The owner, Amadeo Gonzalez Figueroa, moved to the United States in 1974 from Metapán, a town in El Salvador's northwest, according to the restaurant's own story page. When he opened in 1987, the menu served Italian food alongside pupusas. After two years he dropped the Italian dishes and expanded the Salvadoran side, and the official story adds that he was one of the San Francisco entrepreneurs licensed to import loroco, the flower bud that flavors the classic cheese pupusa.

Gazetteer SF profiled the restaurant in June 2026, during the World Cup, and filled in the people behind the counter. The menu is based on Gonzalez Figueroa's grandmother's recipes and is kept by chef Patricia Jimenez, who has cooked there for 36 years. His wife, Evelyn Figueroa, works alongside him. The couple once opened a Balompié Cafe #2 in Metapán, which they later closed, and Balompié Cafe #3, between Glen Park and Bernal Heights, did so well that they sold it to a partner.

The building itself has a story too. Mission Local reported in November 2017 that the restaurant had closed temporarily the previous year for a seismic retrofit, and that a note on the door announced a reopening on November 24. It has been back on the corner ever since, and Gazetteer SF counted 39 years at this location in 2026. The same feature reported that Gonzalez Figueroa planned to open another restaurant in the East Bay city of Richmond after the World Cup, so the Balompié name may soon travel across the bay.

The official online menu lists most pupusas at $4.75, served with curtido and salsa included. That price covers the revuelta, the loroco y queso, the chicharrón and the zucchini y queso. The camarón y queso, filled with shrimp and cheese, is $5.00. The story page also mentions a house favorite called the Mexicana y Queso, with pork mince, jalapeños and cheese, one of the fillings that sets this menu apart from the classic lineup.

For a full plate, Pupusas Combo #2, with two pupusas, starts at $16.75, and the pupusa platter starts at $9.50. A good first order is a revuelta and a loroco y queso, the two pupusas that best show off the masa and the imported loroco the owner built his business around, then a shrimp pupusa for contrast. Pupusas come with curtido and salsa, so there is no need to order them separately.

The rest of the menu is a tour of Salvadoran home cooking. Tamal de elote con crema, the sweet fresh-corn tamal with cream, is $11.50. Yuca cocida o frita, boiled or fried cassava, starts at $17.95 with your choice of chicharrón, chicken, beef or pescaditas, small fried fish. Sopa de mondongo, the Salvadoran tripe soup, is $18.95, and the bistec encebollado, steak smothered in onions, is $20.95.

Breakfast is served too. The plate of plátanos, frijoles, queso, crema y huevos, fried plantains with beans, cheese, cream and eggs, is $16.95. For dessert, the canoa, a ripe plantain split and filled with sweet custard, is $8.75, and empanadas de leche are $11.75. A whole tres leches cake is made to order for $70.00, and the menu asks you to call the restaurant to set it up.

Gazetteer SF called Balompié the Mission's finest World Cup hotspot, and its June 2026 feature described a dining room built around the two big screens, with longtime server Elisa Navarrete working the tables during matches. The restaurant lists dine-in, take-out, delivery, catering, reservations, outdoor seating and vegetarian options, and it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you are planning to watch a major match with a group, a reservation is the safest way to get a table near a screen.

Balompié is closed on Monday and Tuesday. The hours shown in the official site's location panel are Wednesday and Thursday 10 am to 7:30 pm, Friday 10 am to 8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday 9 am to 8 pm. Online ordering runs through the restaurant's own site, which also has a rewards program and an app. The homepage text gives an 8 pm close on Wednesday and Thursday, while the location panel and Google both show 7:30 pm, so plan a weeknight dinner before 7:30.

The 16th St Mission BART station is about a seven-minute walk north, which makes Balompié easy to reach from downtown, and 24th St Mission BART is roughly a 16-minute walk south. Walk a few blocks west on 18th Street and you reach the Women's Building, home to the 1994 MaestraPeace mural that covers two of its outside walls in images of women from around the world, one of the Mission's best-known pieces of public art.

From there, continue northwest to Mission Dolores on 16th Street, the adobe mission completed in 1791 and the oldest intact building in San Francisco. Its basilica and cemetery garden make a quiet counterpoint to a loud match at Balompié, and the walk back to BART passes the cafes and taquerias of 16th Street.

Balompié Cafe #1, 3349 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94110, at Capp Street in the Mission. Closed Monday and Tuesday; Wednesday and Thursday 10 am to 7:30 pm; Friday 10 am to 8 pm; Saturday and Sunday 9 am to 8 pm. Pupusas $4.75, shrimp $5.00; two-pupusa combo from $16.75; sopa de mondongo $18.95; canoa $8.75. Dine-in, take-out, delivery, catering and reservations.