El Zocalo Restaurant — Restaurant in South San Francisco

Pupusas at this place are really good but their attention and customer service is not good. Besides rising their prices they force you to have their spicy salsa instead of the regular one. I called in for a to go order and I clearly said I wanted regular salsa and not the spicy one. I showed up to pick them up and the lady was confused about my order, something didn't seem right and I ask her if I was getting the regular salsa. She wasn't sure and asked the cook who confirmed I was getting the spicy one, she changed it for a tiny container of regular salsa and told me they charge extra for that one. I said I already knew that but that I thought the price was included in my ticket since I said it over the phone. The lady accused me of not saying that, I told her I mentioned it over the phone and she kept insisting I didn't. I didn't argue with anyone and just left with my order just to come home and find out they messed up with my order and because of it my brother couldn't eat his pupusas since they were all pork instead of beans and cheese as I ordered them.

I totally understand we all make mistakes and people in restaurants work under pressure but you never have to insinuate customers they are lying. This is not the first time it happens to my family and me when ordering from you and there's always attitude from your employees, we never argue and always tried to give you more opportunities to change our mind but most of the times we get the same issues, as I said food is good but your employees lack customer service skills.

Also I believe is ridiculous to charge extra for a non spicy salsa when the spicy one is for free. You spend more ingredients (pepper) on the spicy one. Our traditional Salvadoran food...

We stayed away from here for a long time due to one rude Male waiter and the service time was always slow. Today, our waitresses was nice, timely and we got our food pretty quick. However, when I went to pay, I asked if I could pay a part in cash and the rest on a card. The guy said 'no, it's all cash or all card,'. I said ok, no problem. Just charge me the bill and I will leave the tip in cash. He looked at me funny and asked 'are you actually going to hand it to her?' I was taken by surprise, I told him again I was going to leave the tip in cash and asked him why did it matter to him as he was not our waiter. He just looked at me. So I asked him if he would feel better if he walked over with me to give her the tip? He just started, so I gave him the tip and told him to give it to her since he was so worried. The manager apologized and tried to sell me a story that it was a misunderstanding, but I know it wasn't, this guy has always been a real a-hole, bitter, sad and probably upset with his life choices that he gets off on treating paying customers that way, even if he did not attend to them. This is the 3rd time there has been an incident with him and management always apologizes and says thing will change, but it's obvious that he doesn't care as he continues. As they say, 3 strikes and your out, so for me I am officially done with this place, most of my family (party of 12) agree. I know the manager will probably read this and not really...

Good take out experience. I hadn't been here for several years since service - both dine in and take out - always seemed unreasonably slow and sometimes unfriendly.  Fortunately, this was not the case this time around.  The order was prepared within the estimated time frame and the gentleman who both took and gave me my order was kind and professional. Additionally, food seemed fresh, portions were large, and everything tasted good.

Placed an order in person around 12:30 pm on a Friday for 7 pupusas. Food was ready in about 20 minutes as quoted  The pupusas came packed nicely in a small pizza box.  The 2 chicharron pupusas were separated from the 5 revuelta frijoles pupusas by extra wax paper.  The order came with an 8 oz container of red salsa and quart sized zip-top bag filled very generously with curtido.

Minor gripe - a couple of the revuelta frijoles pupusas were unevenly filled. Cheese was on one side and pork and beans were on...