For its first location outside SF, this prized pupusa spot chose Richmond

For years, when Mauricio Gonzalez and his wife, Deysi Ramos, who live in Richmond, got a certain pupusa itch, they’d brave the traffic to San Francisco, never sure how long it would take or how stressful a drive it would be.

Their destination for this monthly pilgrimage? Balompié Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District, where they used to live.

As of last month, that itch has gotten a lot more convenient to scratch.

“Yay!” said Gonzalez with a grin. “We are excited,” Ramos said. 

In August, Balompié, a popular Salvadoran mainstay in San Francisco for nearly 40 years, opened a Richmond location in a struggling strip mall across from Walgreens at the mostly shuttered Hilltop Mall, slated for major redevelopment. Balompié means football (fútbol) or soccer in Spanish.

Gonzalez and Ramos, who live close by in the city’s Fairmede neighborhood and both immigrated from El Salvador to San Francisco in the 1980s, moving to Richmond in 1999, have been regulars since.

“It’s the flavor,” Gonzalez  explained, as he sat in the bright Balompié Sports Bar & Grill on a recent Saturday waiting for a take-out order. 

“The touch. Like you’re back home, back in El Salvador,” he said.

Ramos nodded. “I feel like I’m back home.”

But as Gonzalez sips his Pilsener, often called the national beer of El Salvador, he offers up a true confession, lowering his voice a little as he glances around the spacious corner eatery with a sprinkling of customers, TV screens blaring soccer, soft sizzles from the grill. 

 “I’m 100% Salvadoran, and I’m not a pupusa lover,” he says, with a mixture of pride and apology.  

Oh, pupusas are fine, good, he continues. Then he enthusiastically lists his homeland loves, most also served at Balompie. Pan con pollo. (Stewed chicken sandwich in a bolillo roll with fresh vegetables.) Pan con pavo. (Same sandwich but with turkey.) Yuca con chicharrón. (Tender cassava root with deep-fried pork.) 

Deysi Ramos, on the other hand, is all-in for pupusas,  El Salvador’s best known, and probably most widely eaten national dish. 

Thick grilled corn cakes with a variety of fillings — cheese, chicken, bean, pork, spinach or loroco, a flowering savory plant native to Central America, pupusas are popular as snacks and meals — breakfast, lunch or dinner. Usually handmade, the dough is sometimes made with rice flour as opposed to maize or corn.

Typical sides include a traditional (usually mild) red sauce; curtido, a pickled cabbage and carrot kind of coleslaw; and rice, beans, or mixed rice and beans called casamiento, which translates to marriage. 

The menu at the Richmond restaurant, the third and newest in the Bay Area Balompié family, is not yet quite as extensive as those at the other two locations, both in San Francisco, said Amadeo Gonzalez Figueroa, who opened the first spot at 18th and Capp streets in San Francisco in 1987 (Cafe #1)  several years after arriving from El Salvador.  

He later opened a second location on Richland Avenue (Cafe #3) in the outer Mission District, which is now owned by one of his nieces. Cafe #2 was a brief experiment for Figueroa, opened in his home town of Metapan, El Salvador, now closed.

The restaurants are known for their pupusas, often drawing crowds. But Figueroa’s deep passion for soccer is woven tightly into the Balompié appeal, starting with the name. Large screens streaming matches. Local team sponsorships. Banners. Paraphernalia. Posters. Flags. It’s a full-on global representation of the game. 

The fútbol fanaticism is fed by Figueroa’s history as a semi-professional player in El Salvador. He was about to sign a professional contract when he left for the United States in 1974, at age 20, amid violent political unrest at home that would soon erupt into a devastating 12–year civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people fled El Salvador at this time, including for the United States. 

He picked his sport right back up in the Bay Area, playing semi-professionally with a team based at Balboa Park. And he continues playing informally to this day. His dream, he said, is to retire to El Salvador and coach kids. 

Figueroa co-owns the Richmond business with married couple Jacinto and Gloria Soto, Salvadoran immigrants who now live in American Canyon. He met Jacinto 50 years ago playing soccer in Dolores Park in San Francisco, and they’ve been close since. 

He leased the building years ago when it was an office space, waiting out the pandemic and remodeling it into a restaurant.

As they’ve seen El Salvadoran and other Latin American immigrants leave San Francisco for less expensive communities, including their family members and friends, opening in Richmond seemed a smart move, the trio of owners said. 

“A lot of the population from the Mission came down here,” Figueroa said of Salvadorans moving to Richmond and other West Contra Costa cities — San Pablo, El Sobrante, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo.

“It’s insane to rent in San Francisco,” he said, for a home or a business. 

According to LoopNet, an online commercial real estate marketplace, the current average rent for restaurant space in San Francisco is $43 per square foot, compared to a range of $18 to $26 per square foot in Richmond.

The Sotos are among those who made the move from the city years ago to buy a house. 

“A lot of our paisanos [countrymen] used to live in San Francisco,” Jacinto Soto said, taking a short break from restaurant office duties. “People got out of San Francisco because of the housing; they wanted to buy their own place, they couldn’t stay.”  

Soto’s a realtor, tax accountant, and retired Cal-EPA engineer.

“They couldn’t stay in Berkeley — it’s too expensive. They couldn’t stay in Albany — too expensive. They couldn’t  stay in El Cerrito — too expensive. So they moved to Richmond,” said Gloria Soto, retired from the U.S. Postal Service.

“Those are our customers,” she said. 

Contra Costa County’s Salvadoran population grew from roughly 7,000 to 30,000 from 2000 to 2020, more than quadrupling, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Meanwhile, in San Francisco County, the Salvadoran population grew from about 11,700 to 16,682 over the same period.

The area has plenty of other Salvadoran restaurants, each with their fans. They aren’t there to compete, the Balompié team said, but to add to the offerings. 

The owners expect the restaurant’s menu, events, and community involvement to evolve and expand over time.

“A place for community, families, friends. Any sport, American football, baseball. Everyone is welcome, especially kids,” Figueroa said. A trademark Balompié soccer ball hangs from the ceiling outside the front door. 

He’s counting on the sports soul catching on in Richmond, he said. The pupusas are already bringing people in. And while it’s named Balompie Sports Bar & Grill, the aim is the same kind of spot for beer, food and hanging out as in San Francisco, he said. 

The food, the ingredients and the techniques are the same at all the Balompies, because they all share a head chef — Patricia Jimenez, who’s been with the restaurant for 36 years. 

“She’s training everybody, so the food can be the same as in San Francisco,” said Gloria Soto. “Everything is made here.” 

Jimenez, who is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico and lives in San Francisco, is commuting to Richmond to help launch the new place. The recipes, embedded in Jimenez’s memory, originated from Figueroa’s grandmother in El Salvador, he said.

The first few weeks after opening, the new Balompié saw crowds, mostly drawn by social media and word-of-mouth. Since then, it’s quieted down a little. 

“Any business is a risk. You can’t sit on the side because it’s risky; you’ve got to get the bull by the horn,” said Jacinto Soto. 

Gloria Soto smiled: “He’s an optimist,” she said. And social, which can be a good fit for a restaurant, she added. “He just wants to be out and around people.”