Mercado Marimar

Best tacos in town. Go on a day when the tortilladora is working and they’re serving mixed carnitas. Best.

This is a grocery store but there’s also fresh, authentic, taquiera kitchen in the back to your right.
We always get the tacos, usually $ 2-​$ 3 depending on what type of meat. They have pork — which is by far the best, most delicious choice — barbacoa, steak. They are garnished with cilantro and chopped white onions, and containers of red and Verde salsa.
They also have fresh bakery items and bread from pan y pan and other bakeries.
Credit cards are accepted!

Tasty tacos on house made corn tortillas. Killer hot sauces. Was looking for hominy (not from a can) to make posole and found it here. Meanwhile, had a snack at the counter. Hooray!

Best Mexican food in Madison – and it ain’t even close. As a FIB from Chicago, I’ve been incredibly underwhelmed by all the places Madisonians have recommended to me over the past few years. Then I stumbled on this place and came to the glorious realization that there is great, affordable Mexican food in Madtown. The mole on Mondays is to die for, and comes with a hefty packet of house-​pressed, fresh tortillas. All of the salsas are killer (you better like spicy, though). Cooks and clerks are always friendly. While the pastor tacos aren’t cooked on a spit (seems more like marinated, grilled pork), they’re heaped full of flavorful meat, and are devoid of the grisly bits that the traditional preparation often involves. 12 really good tamales for $ 14 is also a helluva deal. The menu can be a little hard to figure out if you aren’t well-​versed in Spanish, but as long as you’re conversational in it, you should be alright.

This place was absolutely amazing! Come check this place around campus or their food cart! I had steak tacos, guacamole, rice, beans, and chips. All of which were incredibly delicious. Customer service were also extremely fast and friendly. A definite recommendation for anyone looking for authentic Mexican food.

This place has it all. A meat counter, various chorizos and cheeses, produce, a tortilla factory spitting out corn tortillas by the boatload, a small restaurant, and produce. A true one stop shop for all your south of the border needs…

I mean the fact that this is one of the last remaining places in Madison that cranks out tortillas using an older than dirt creaky ass machine is enough to win this recent southwest transplant over. Nothing like a fresh corn tortilla loaded with carne and some pico to really get a guy going, but alas, I haven’t tried their made to order food yet, but will head back there and update y’all when I do.
This review is solely for the market itself, which houses a number of hard to find Mexican ingredients and some popular novelties for all your cooking needs. I’m sure the meat/​poultry offerings are… ehem… authentic, but that area of the place is a touch hard for me to stomach given the fact that weird meat makes me oogie. The aisles themselves are organized pretty well, but if you can’t find something the owner (I think it’s Mari) is super willing to point you in the right direction.
Side not, SloFood Madison holds monthly market tours featuring ethnic eats… I imagine these will continue until they run out of places to feature. I stumbled across Mercado Marimar on one such tour and have to say it’s a cool way to connect to places you may not ordinarily stumble across on your own. Sound like something else you know…?

I really, really want to give them 4.5 stars. I can’t. Thanks, Unilocal.
Mercado Marimar is a tiny Mexican grocery store located on South Park St., right before you get on the highway. However, inside this place is an even smaller cantina! It appears unassuming from the outside, and there were a few people milling around in the market, mostly on their lunch break. We went up to order and were immediately greeted by a very nice woman, presumably the owner, who offered us a taste of the daily stew. It was fantastic, but that’s not what we were there for. We were going to have our tacos, dammit!
A really cool feature of this place is that they have an old, creaky tortilla machine that’s constantly grinding out fresh corn tortillas. I had a good feeling as they brought the food out (complete with free rice and beans!). These tacos were loaded to the brim with meat-​I got the asada, pastor and campechano… again. They were all excellent. The asada was fantastic, perfectly marinated, and perfectly complimented by the cilantro and onions. The same can be said for the campechano. The pastor was very good, but I felt it was ever-​so-​slightly off. Overall, though? Excellent.

A friend introduced me to Mercado Marimar a few weeks ago and I’ve been talking about going back ever since to explore the store and try the homemade tortillas. I went with a group for a light lunch and I ordered the cheese tamale. I also sampled the rice and beans along with a bite of the mole sauce that accompanied by friend’s generous portion of chicken mole. Everything tasted great and the salsa selection was delicious. They had a mild pico de gallo that came with the chips as well as both a spicy red and spicy green salsa. I haven’t tried too many different mole sauces, but this one was great with a deep and rich flavor. As I was trying the mole I even got a thumbs up from another patron!

This is a nice little grocer. I wish their cash register would work better so that you don’t have to wait 10 minutes to ring up. But otherwise its nice.

I’m a huge Mexican mercado fan and this one just came under my radar.
I stopped by to see if they carry some fruits, and whoa, was surprised to see a little eatery in middle of the store.
An excellent lunch spot.
A taco (everyday they have asada, pastor etc) is $ 1.75, slightly high in price in my opinion. But the two layers of fresh made tortillas are LOADED with the meat of your selection, sauteed onions, and fresh cilantro leaves. I drizzled their fresh made salsa, guacamole, and topped the already voluminous tacos with the cactus pickles. Hmmmm good. Reminds me of the flavors I enjoyed in Mexico.
Besides tacos, the menu also listed menudo, tortas, and few staples. Very friendly staff, and loved the neighborhood feeling. Definitely a hidden gem.

You want Mexican foodstuffs? Get thee in here. Shelves groaning with everything from nopalitos to refried beans… produce, not great but usually good and inexpensive. And MEAT… yes, the carnivore in you can come out.