El Chico Produce No 2

My favorite grocer in the area. Produce is always good and occasionally I find things I thought only my grandmother has access to. Really low prices, especially compared to safeway. Also live all of the treats you can find here, and when I’m feeling home sick or want to celebrate a little something I just head over and grab something nice :)
I definitely recommend this place, and bring cash for purchases less than $ 10

My mom loves this place cus they have gallina and most of the meats. Just today she when to go buy ribs she order 3 when she got home and open the plastic this guy gave her 6??? I mean more meat lol but next time please pay attention what people order. I notice the meat section is more cleaner and the taste of the meats is better than the produce Guzman.

Great selection of fruits, vegetables and meats at a great price. Chorizo, arrachera etc. lots of fruits they even had mamey once. Mostly CA and MX stuff and sometimes from central/​South America. Nice cashiers and butchers.

I live by Mission and Geneva and have a bunch of these types of places around me but I go a bit further to El Chico Produce because of their selection, quality and prices. Parking can be tough but it’s well worth it.

Pollo Podrido, cuando lo regrese se ofenden por la queja, empleado de la carnicería rude, no querían regresar el dinero cuando hacia 15 min que lo había comprado no tienen manager{eso dijeron} tampoco dan nombre del dueño, bad bad

esta tarde hice una compra en chicos y lamentable mente precencie, una situacion que me llamo la atencion. la joven dela registradora 1. el cual descuide el nombre dela joven de lentes. pero ella mostro ineficiencia al atender al cliente. con tonos aberrantes y mostrando ineficiencia. falta de atencion al cliente. comunicando situacion a otro cliente referiendose en un todo descriminatorio por ser de raza oriental. la cliente la cual se sucito una diferencia de precio de un producto. mencionando que mendigos chinos deberian ir ala escuela. y que por 5 dolares de diferencia ella no reclamaria. ahora menos por 50 centavos que eran la diferencia dela clienta .eso me llamo la atencion que deberia tener mejor condicion para resolver la necesidad del
debe haber. puntos raciales. en un pais de multiples culturas.

A great place to buy vegetables and fruit.

Service = friendly
Fruit = good
Prices = reasonable

Still amazing.
A few updates–
* Be sure to look at the shelves below the waist-​level — there are so many things you might miss (i.e. corn tortillias, trail mix, Vietnamese breads, better Jumex flavors)
* Don’t ignore the Queso Fresco by the cash registers (order by the pound — ¼, 1/​3, ½, … it’s less than $ 4/​lb)
* Coconut water here is awesome and less than $ 1 each!
* Dry pasta here is great here (small-​ish packets are $ 0.39 each — they even have tiny stars and alphabets for the kids in us)
* Button mushrooms and red/​green lettuces are a steal here: D
Sunday is my new grocery day here. LOVE.
p. s. don’t forget to BYOB (bring your own bags)
;)

Great service, people is so friendly and really clean i shop here for 10 years and i could say this is the store to shop

I come here about 3 time/​week, every week since 2009
Walk away with two gigantic heavy bags of fruits & veggies for like $ 15
They have the best prices on produce for a grocery store I’ve seen in the entire bay area. And their produce is really good, safeway and luckys etc don’t even compare with the quality of their fruits.
Speechless, its just so good.
Go to El Chico Produce # 2
$ 10 min for credit cards.

On top of what everyone else already said, they will cut your meat any way you want it! Today, i’m going in to pick up 30 pounds of pork for our family tamales and they are cutting it for me just the way i want it. And to think about all the years we bought it at Costco and spent hours cutting it ourselves.
They also have the BEST queso fresco in town. Order it at the counter freshly cut from the big round block.

So basically most of the produce markets one mission street are super reasonably priced. I come here since they are close to my house and I can probably buy ridiculous amounts of produce for less than $ 10.00!
I know it’s crowded and isn’t as clean as safeway, but fresh produce is still fresh produce!
Parking really sucks, but give it a try. I’m like a little kid in a candy store. except i’m really an adult in a grocery store =)

you can’t go wrong with these local market, way fresher then safeway and lucky…

Interesting place to go because of the high ceiling and cables that span across the room. It’s like a miniature outdoor market, indoors. I like wandering around here occasionally; helpful staff and lots of selection. Fun way to spend 20 minutes or so on south Mission, good prices on produce and latin-​american products.

YES! This place is amazing.
Buying produce anywhere else in the neighborhood is a poor life decision. They have an incredible selection of fresh, beautiful fruits and vegetables at prices so low I walk out feeling like I just robbed the place. Also, the people who work the register rock. They crank the line along at an astounding pace, and if they don’t know how much something costs they’ll just punch in some ridiculously low price. I got a huge bag of tortillas one time for 75 cents.
They also have a good meat counter, which is definitely a lot cleaner and nicer than most of the meat markets in the neighborhood, some of which freak me out a little bit. Others freak me out quite a lot actually, like the one on geneva where a lot of stuff is self-​service and just sitting out in the open and people who don’t even work there sticking their bare hands into containers of chicken and fish. Anyway, none of that sketchy shit at El Chico.
Another thing I love is the huge selection of spices from Mama, the café and coffee/​spice importer located a couple blocks down the road at Mission & Onondaga. The spices are always good and are super cheap. Even stuff that is usually pricey like saffron!
Anyway, stop Unilocaling and go fill up a gigantic sack of produce. I guarantee it won’t cost more than 20 bucks.
Unilocal, you need to implement a half dollar sign for this place, «inexpensive» is just not doing them justice.

Have you ever been to a store with three shelves of Peruvian hot sauce? I have! El Chico has plenty of standard Mexican fare, but they also carry things I’ve never seen anywhere else, including some strange unlabeled fruit thing from the deli counter that’s kept for the last year.
El Chico also carries fresh nuts much cheaper than you’ll find elsewhere, although watch out for the bagged mixed nuts — everything’s shelled except the pistachios (ow, potentially).
This store has a rhythm — if you shop around noon or 5, you’ll have to elbow your way through the store and stand in a long line snaking past the deli counter, but in the afternoon and around the dinner hour of 6 or 7, you’ll have better luck.
El Chico has, as everyone else’s review says, a large supply of fresh Latin American produce. I prefer going to the farmer’s market, but when I do buy at a neighborhood store, I go El Chico.

I went to this place on Amy A’s recommendation. She’s not lying. This place is great! They have the best produce selection of any of the markets in the neighborhood and they are SUPER CHEAP! The produce is usually very good. As with most outdoor /​indoor markets, you gotta be a little picky with the outside stuff that’s been in the sun (hint, most of the items outside are also stocked inside). The meat counter is expansive and the meat is very fresh. There seems to be alot of turn-​over here, and I never notice any funky smells by the meat. They also have a cheese counter and a bakery aisle along with a few aisles of dried grocery goods.
I tried the Chuletas Preparados like Amy A told me to and they were delicious. They are cut thin they are perfect for grilling or pan searing (what I did). They were actually cheaper than I expected ($ 2.39 a lb) so I got some chicken (prepared) as well for the same price. The butchers here are nice, they know their stuff and they will put your meat order in the refrigerator case for you while you shop or stand in line (NICE!)
to sum up, I bought:
1 lb of prepared chicken
1 lb of prepared pork
4 valencia oranges
4 asian pears
2 large white zucchini
2 bunches of asparagus
1 bunch of bananas
1 2L of Diet Coke
under $ 15 dollars
Wtf is Safeway?

Everything the local produce market should be – wide selection, ripe, well-​maintained, clean, and most of all CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. Why anyone would pay twice the price for groceries at Safeway is beyond me.
Plus, they have an amazing butcher with everything from marinated carne to pigs feet to fried pork skin to my white-​boy favorite. boneless, skinless chicken and all for below grocery store prices.
They also have authentic Mexican candies, basic canned food, and fresh baked pastries.
Great selection of fruit and veg.
A cheap chef’s dream!

Cool place.
It’s dirt cheap, and no, not because there is dirt on the produce sometimes. They carry everything you’re looking for to prepare a fresh meal, and sell it cheaper than any other store in the neighborhood. I hate that they let rotting fruit sit on the stands and even try to sell it at lower prices though. It attracts flies and is kind of disgusting when it gets on your hands. But I do have to admit I’ve purchased some of those bad fruit… it was like stealing! And it had only just gone bad.
The shoppers here can be kind of rude, but just be patient or ignore them. A lot of the produce is really insect/​pest/​herb-​icide heavy, but I don’t worry about it as long I wash thoroughly and cook to the right temps.
It’s dirty and crowded from the sidewalk into the store, but preparing a nice meal at home with the fresh produce you brought at El Chico beats ordering out again.

I love El Chico. This is the place to go for fresh produce and meats. Everything is so much less expensive than Safeway and the selection is better, too.
I highly recommend that you try the Chuletas Preparados, pork chops marinated in fresh veggies and seasoning, raw for $ 2.99/lb. We brought home a pound today and threw it on the BBQ Grill. It was MOUTH WATERING and a pound was enough to feed four. The also have marinated chicken and steak. And the rest of the meat counter is just as impressive!
The produce is fantastic too. Red Leaf Lettuce is $ 0.75/head and big fresh limes are 8/​$ 1.00.
El Chico beats the hell out of Safeway!

yah, you’ll think its a bit dirty and unorganized as you are wandering thru the labrinth of metal shelves and looking dubiously at the fruit stacked in cardboard boxes, but then you see the hand-​written prices and you fill your basket to the brim. CHEAP-​O. I mean 69 cent avocados and the like.
all the food is F.O.T.T. (fresh out the truck) from mexico and completely unorganic, but ignore strawberries, tomatoes etc. and all will be fine. they have great mangoes, avocados, bananas, papayas, citrus and peaches (when they are in season). you can stock up on mexican hot chocolate (yum), tapatio hot sauce and portuguese sweet rolls (makes great french toast). oh and the frozen tamales are great!
details: parking can sometimes be difficult on mission, turn down ocean for more options. also, be sure to watch where you step when you are perusing the produce outside, theres always a roll away underfoot. notice how the cashiers wet there fingers with lemon to separate the plastic bags. very natural and nice :)