Taqueria El Farolito — Restaurant in San Francisco

I’ve been characterized as being stoic, easy going and having ice water in my vein’s. It takes a lot to rock my boat.

Tonight, I had a customer service experience that boiled my blood. My wife and I decided to go to El Farolito in Excelsior for dinner. When we got up to the counter, I ordered $28 worth of food including “1 regular burrito, carne asada with NO beans”, which was for my wife. I tipped $5 on the order and then my wife and I sat down and waited for our food.

The server came and delivered our meal very quickly, but my wife realized after the first bite into her burrito that it had beans in it. I told her confidently to take it up to the counter, because I was so sure that they would make a new one correctly. Oh, how wrong I was…

It was obvious from where I was sitting that my wife was not getting anywhere with the cashier. I went up to see what was wrong and it was clear that the cashier had no desire to offer up a correctly made burrito. I reminded the cashier that I clearly asked for No beans on 1 of the burritos, but she very quickly turned her head and decided to completely ignore me. We pleaded with the other workers behind the counter and they just pointed to the cashier and said “you need to talk to her”. At this point I was livid, but realized we weren’t going to get anywhere. I told the cashier I was going to call my credit card company to claim a chargeback for the entire bill and she didn’t seem to care.

Now you may be wondering how I got so heated over an $8 burrito. It’s not the money that got me heated, it was the senseless stupidity of the cashier that completely frustrated me. I am a finance guy and the short-sightedness of the cashier and her lack of any customer service boggled my mind.

On average in the restaurant industry, ingredients cost roughly 33% of Gross Revenue. So that $8 burrito costs El Farolito about $2.50 in ingredients. The cashier and company lost 2 burrito loving customers over $2.50!! I’m sure the cashier didn’t realize I tipped $5 on bill, but even if she provided us a replacement burrito, the El Farolito “entity” would have still been net positive after this incident. I subsequently asked her to remove the $5 tip from the bill, so the cashier and her peers personally lost money due to her lack of customer service.

I have never filed a chargeback over a food/restaurant dispute, but I feel fully justified in doing so, because we ended up leaving the restaurant immediately, after only have a few bites of our meal. If I win the chargeback, El Farolito will not only lose our $28, but may also be charged additional fees by the credit card processor and face higher processing fees in the future.

The likelihood that the casher took any of this into account is probably close to 0, but it should be the responsibility of the business owner to implement financial and customer service controls that optimizes for the best long-term financial outlook. By not replacing an $8 burrito, which cost them $2.50 to make, they will potentially lose $28 in the short-term but conservatively another $60-90 per year over the long-term. MISTAKE.

A couple lessons to be learned from this incident:

A) Businesses: Be fair, logical and respectful to your customers or risk losing future business. B) Customers: You have rights. Take full advantage of the benefits and protections offered by your credit cards. I have been “made whole” on numerous occasions because of these benefits due to incidents of theft, accidents and poor customer service. We all pay for these benefits, so take advantage if you feel you have a...

2025 update. El Farolito is awesome. The chefs here are experts. I love how the meats are always smoky delicious. Tonight's take-out was my usual order, carnitas (deep fried pork) super burrito $12.25 and chips $0.75. Back when I was taking night classes at City College, I would come here all the time because they close at 3am on Thursdays. My rotation was El Farolito, Beep's or 7-11 hot dogs after class let out at 9pm. Pretty much everything on the menu at El Farolito are good.

Original review: Not on the menu, my dorado style super steak burrito $9.50 was delicious. I also got a side of chips for $0.75. Officially, a dorado style (seared) burrito is not on the menu. I asked the cashier to make me one. So, if you are going to order one, you need to do it in-person and it depends on your Spanish or the cashier. The chef did a great job with mine. It was seared, not too crispy or oily and had a great color. It was something that put a smile on my face.

They are busy again by the way. During the height of the pandemic, I was the only customer in there doing to-go. I'm happy they are...

Best best best burritos around! I have lived here all my life and this place has always been a staple when I get the craving for burritos or quesadillas! Of course all the other specialty dishes I can have at home when the occasion comes because, well, I'm Mexican.

But if you love burritos, quesadillas, tacos, etc. you've got to come here! I have to say that I've been spoiled by this place to most other taquerias, except the one on 24th St. or Guadalajara, when it comes to burritos. You can never go wrong with carne asada or the carnitas. The super burritos are just amazing! They hook it up with so much meat, even when I tell them to put everything in it! Most other places you have to tell them to leave out the rice and beans or else they'll fill it up with nothing but that! This place always has great portions, the ingredients are so fresh and flavorful! The thought of the aroma right when you walk into the place will stick with you and guarantee to make you hungry as it's making me whilst I write this!

Love this place! It is definitely one of my top 5 favorite...