Name: S.F. burrito favorite El Farolito owner Salvador ‘Don Chava’ Lopez, restaurateur and soccer icon, dies
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S.F. burrito favorite El Farolito owner Salvador ‘Don Chava’ Lopez, restaurateur and soccer icon, dies

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUPDATE: San Francisco’s iconic finally opens in North BeachSalvador “Don Chava” Lopez, who was known in San Francisco for founding both the El Farolito restaurant chain and a premier soccer club of the same name in the San Francisco Soccer Football League, died Jan. 5.Lopez’s son, Santiago, confirmed the news of his death and described his father as “someone who loved San Francisco, and always considered it home.” Lopez was 70 years old.“We’re just happy he was able to create everything here in a city that he truly, truly loved,” Santiago said. “He got to live incredible years — the ’80s, ’90s, the tech boom. He saw how our beautiful city always changes but it always stays the same; it always has an essence. And that’s what he talked about.”Lopez, who was born on Nov. 9, 1950, in Guanajuato, Mexico, immigrated to the Bay Area in 1975. In 1983, he opened the first outpost of El Farolito in San Francisco’s Mission District. According to his son, the business was named after a taqueria Lopez worked at in Mexico City before moving to the U.S.El Farolito has long been considered one of the best taquerias in the region. Its burritos, which seemingly burst at the seams with rice, cheese and grilled meats, consistently draw crowds of diners and are popular with restaurant critics too: The taqueria was The original taqueria in particular was also long known as a place to get a late-night meal.More for youToday, the mini-chain has including in Oakland, South San Francisco Concord, San Jose, Santa Rosa, San Rafael and Suisun City. In San Francisco, El Farolito has four outposts, two of them on Mission Street.“He loved food and had a very good sense of preparing things in the kitchen. He had a great experience in Mexico City learning the real al pastor style and how to make the adobos, all those sauces, in a very Mexico City style,” Santiago said.It was Lopez’s time in Mexico City that inspired one of the most popular items on El Farolito’s menus, Santiago said: the quesadilla suiza, a large, crispy tortilla folded and filled with avocado slices, melted cheese and a choice of meat.Equally as significant as Lopez’s influence on the local food world was his work as part of the soccer scene. He founded the El Farolito soccer club in 1985, and the following year, the club joined the San Francisco Soccer Football League. Santiago said his father would feed players and fans food from his restaurants after the game. Since the family doesn’t often speak to media, that became a form of advertising, Santiago said.Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.His father’s team quickly became one of the best in the league’s premier division, and the journey reached its pinnacle in 1993 when it won the U.S. Open Cup, which was a competitive American soccer tournament open to amateur and professional clubs. When El Farolito joined the National Premier Soccer League in 2018, a fourth division soccer league in the United States, Santiago took over as coach and led the team to a division title.Santiago has two siblings, and he said that with their father’s death, they along with the rest of the city lost “a mentor, a teacher and a friend.” As for the El Farolito restaurants, he said his family plans to continue running the chain as his father would have wanted.“We’re going to try keep going for the next decades. He always made it clear that every day you prepare your salsas and food, you’re serving your community and you should be grateful for that,” Santiago said. “Thanks to them, he was able to build what he did.”Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:&nbsp;Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUPDATE: San Francisco’s iconic finally opens in North BeachSalvador “Don Chava” Lopez, who was known in San Francisco for founding both the El Farolito restaurant chain and a premier soccer club of the same name in the San Francisco Soccer Football League, died Jan. 5.Lopez’s son, Santiago, confirmed the news of his death and described his father as “someone who loved San Francisco, and always considered it home.” Lopez was 70 years old.“We’re just happy he was able to create everything here in a city that he truly, truly loved,”...

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Justin Phillips

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S.F. burrito favorite El Farolito owner Salvador ‘Don Chava’ Lopez, restaurateur and soccer icon, dies

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