Loco Taco

Hilights from my visit on July 22, 2007:
* chicken in my burrito was dry and tough
* guacamole was coming out of the side
* wow that’s a lot of rice!
* boring tortilla chips
* ordering area is really uninviting
Why must Taqueria Cancun be so far away…

This place isn’t THAT terrible, but it certainly isn’t anything spectacular.
The first warning sign was that it was basically empty at 7:30 pm on a Saturday night. The woman actually making the food was of Latin decent, so that was a good sign.
I had their vegan burrito with guacamole. The guac was practically non-​existent, and the steamed mushrooms, carrots, onions and zucchini were kind of soggy and flavorless. Their salsa fresca had NO heat and the tomatoes were kind of un-​ripe. However, their salsa verde had a good jalapeo kick. The pinto beans were good, but you can’t really mess up pinto beans. The chips were free and good. The atmosphere was pretty nice, and fairly clean.
Note that their Heath Department scorecard was a 91. It always irks me when restaurants fall below health standards — how hard is it to make sure you don’t get sued?! I probably won’t go back.

I don’t know if I can even say the food here is «so-​so»… I have been disappointed every time except for the very first time I ate at Loco Taco. The first time I had the chicken taco combination plate. It was just okay… not gross but not very good either.
I have a friend who lives near by and so sometimes her cravings for nachos would send us here. Every time it wasn’t so great. Something about the chicken just doesn’t taste right. They never seem too happy to be dealing with customers. Its always really hot in there.
I don’t recommend this place. There are way too many excellent taquerias in the city, don’t waste time here.

Pretty decent/​. I’m usually not much of a mexican fan, especially because of the overreliance on cheese, and the inability to figure out the veg cheese thing. But this place, while no fake cheese, has a few decent vegan options (mainly burritos).
Nothing I get super psyched about, but good anyways. I still call them Roybertito’s (a la Dr. Tran) because i can never remember their name.

The first one is for being nice behind the counter even though you know the food you are serving sucks. Nice to me anyway.
The second is for not making me vomit, though that Green ooze you call salsa came pretty damn close.
Its not too hard. Go to the successful, delicious Taquerias, watch them, do it yourself, maybe with your own twist (a chess table isn’t a twist) and go for it.
They could be filling that place at all times with a few simple upgrades.
I just don’t get it…

The service could definitely use an upgrade by aside from that it’s a reasonably reliable place for to go orders.
I’ve been there maybe a dozen times.
I’ve never had to wait long for my food. For the first couple times I made the mistake of expecting that so I’d order a beer to drink while I wait. BTW, that sounds horrible. I’ve never been able to get more than 4 good pulls in before the food was ready. I learned my lesson and just chill.
The interior is a little tacky in the sense of it being overboard on trying to be cozy. But you know what in comparison to the usual utalitarian interior of all the competition I feel its a welcome change.
In a dozen visits not once did I sense the employees being remotely enthusiastic… I guess I understand.
–1 star for hours open.
–1 star for customer service.
Oh yeah, being from AZ, and having studied in Mexico, I feel I have a little more foundation to assess the food than some others who post. The food is above avg and the chorizo is pretty tasty. However, the competition is mad weak nearby so the bar is slightly lowered… read my La Carreta review.

In a town full of burrito joints, there is nothing remarkable about this particular one, aside from the chess table located just inside the doorway.
If you’ve been searching long & hard for that taqueria/​chess combination, I guess you’ve found your own personal heaven. Otherwise, there’s really no reason to make a special effort to come here.
Oh, & I had an undercooked beef enchilada there once, so if you’re going to order something, make it veggie or chicken.

First let me say that this place doesn’t deliver anymore. And that’s a good thing, cause once I ordered a veggie burrito for delivery and a full 45 minutes later, they called back to tell me they were out of veggies. Impossible.
Delivery issues aside, their burritos are ok. Nothing to write home about, but sufficient when you’re REALLY craving Mexican food.
Oh, and as someone else mentioned, the people who work there hate you. Expect to be glared at the entire time you wait for your food. And, believe me, it’s a loooong wait.

I’ve going to this place every once in a while for about a year, and it should satisfy your burrito/​taco/​quesadilla fix, but it’s nothing to write home about. I’ve tried all the meats and various types of dishes, and the «Burrito Divisadero» with carnitas is the only one I keep coming back to. The ones with rice and beans suck the juice right out of the meat and make it taste pretty generic. Without the rice, it’s pretty tasty, but very juicy. Chips are totally store-​bought, but the salsas are freshly made. You can fill your own containers and take em with you. I’ve never had any leak.
Service can get real slow since they grill all the tortillas, and it’s a small cooking space. If there are even two orders ahead of yours, be prepared with a newspaper or a book. They get a regular supply of The Onion and other local papes, so there’s that. The TV is almost always tuned to a Spanish-​language station, so you can’t just veg out for a few minutes, unless you speak the lingo.
If you really want some good Mexican, or you want to impress some people visiting from out of town, just go to the Mission. La Taqueria or Cancun have some delicious food, but Cancun is pretty spicy. Loco Taco just isn’t representative of the kind of Mexican/​Latin food you can get in this town.

My expectations of this place were low to begin with. I just wasn’t planning on making it my go-​to burrito joint. but, well, it is. i go here at least once every couple of weeks. i kinda look forward to my burrito craving so that I can walk up the street and get a carne asada burrito with whole wheat tortilla. their green salsa has a kick!
Yeah that one chick behind the counter is rather low energy and looks like she can’t crack a smile to save her life, but she’s just as much into getting you in and out of her shop quickly as you are. and hey, its just business. *shrug* her service just doesn’t bother me. i love the boy with the hemp necklace. i love shootin the shit with him and making him laugh. he’s been working there for a long time.
It’s true, the interior space is a bit hectic and uninspiring, but then again, i rarely sit down to eat there. i usually take it to go. And that’s another thing. I’m in there probably less than five minutes because there’s never a line and they crank out the food.
there really isn’t another burrito place i like more in the lower haight. that one on haight and fillmore just doesn’t do it for me. El Castillito is four extra blocks i’d have to walk when i’m craving a burrito now.
Easy, Breezy, Beautiful.

I just wanted to make a note that this was the first time I’ve heard someone play Phish on the speaker system in a burrito joint (haha, joint). Got me in a grilled-​cheese eatin’ mood, or at least its Mexican equivalent, the flour quesadilla.
Anyway, they are better than they were a few months ago, but still have some room to spare. Three stars– the less meat you ask for, the better you’ll be.

Another unfortunate taco. The carnitas were juicy and tender, but not crispy at all, as they’d probably been sitting in a vat since the early morning. No hot sauce on the regular taco either, just some pico with lots of onions and cilantro. The chips were decent and the salsa verde was interesting and spicy, but not worth a repeat visit. Add on a Jarritos and you’ve got $ 5 worth of a sub-​par lunch…

My horchata-​loving Italian girlfriend still hasn’t wrapped her brain around the concept of burritos yet. Not too many Mexican restaurants in Rome, so the cuisine is a tad alien for her. This is the only burrito place that she can handle without getting too bent out of shape.
I, however, am a tad more discerning, and tend to go to Loco because it’s quite close to my apartment. If given the choice, however, were there another Mexican spot in the same proximity, I’d more likely find myself there. If there were a Tonayense truck parked somewhere on Divis near Haight, it’d be Game Over (although that will never happen).
It takes ten minutes to get food where other places might take five, and again, getting some horchata is a crapshoot. Still, as mentioned before, Loco gets the nod because it’s local comfort food for people living in Western Addition. I haven’t tried their delivery, but that’s also because my internal guilt meter would crank into overdrive if I ordered delivery from a place that I can easily walk my happy ass down to. I can’t say that I’d go there if it weren’t for the fact that it’s effectively the only place on Divis to get a quick burrito around here.

A really, really sub-​par burrito. Small as hell too. And the carne asada is always dry.
I also can’t figure out how it takes those dudes about 30 minutes to whip one up when there is only one other person in line.

amazingly good mexican food.
I ended up there last week just to get something to eat before goign back to work.
I got the ‘super quesadilla’ to-​go and I was a-​ma-​zed: super tasty, full of flavor with its melting cheese and delicious ‘carne assada’.
I honestly didn’t know a quesadilla could actually be good… and this one was just excellent.
I will definitely go back there and not only to chat in spanish with the lovely mexican lady behind the counter.
a great find–

Aside from the fact that their disdain is palpable whenever I walk through the front door, it’s definitely better than L-Rico’s used to be.
When I lived up this way, L-Rico’s was the everpresent enigma in my life. So close to my house, yet so unsatisfying. And what of the name? L-​Rico? In the three dimensional world, wouldn’t it be El Rico? What does it all mean?
Anyway, I’m sad (well, ambivalent) to report that L-​Rico went the way of Chances, and became a lightly-​made-​over version of itself. Loco Taco sports a new layout, but the same fundamental character — that depressing strip mall taqueria aura, where you’re only a mile from the Mission but it seems like 100.
Luckily, the food is better than L-Rico’s was, which is to say, edible. The service, however, lacks the cheeriness of Mr. Rico, whoever he was, who always greeted with a smile, no matter the mockery he made of tacos. The service today smacks of disinterest and boredom (and who could blame them, really? It’s no Farolito. Hipsters don’t line up to get some of that Divisadero-​corridor flavor. Well, actually, maybe they do. But not here.)
Anyway, it’s a decent bite to eat if you’re tying one on at Chances. Excuse me, the Page. (A message to the owner of said corner bar: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? If you buy a bar named «Chances», why wouldn’t you name its new incarnation «Second Chances»?? This was my plan for years! Years I tell you! And you’ve dashed my hopes to pieces on the rocks!!)
Anyway, they have many flavors of those Jarritos sodas. Including mango, which is delicious.

It’s rare for me to mark down for service, since all I ever want is to get in & out without having anything thrown at me. But this places gets minus two stars for service.
1– It takes like ten minutes to get a burrito. This isn’t like, a dine-​in, sit-​down place. It’s a taqueria. No idea what takes s’damn long.
B– I was walking home from work and realized that the timing would be perfect to call ahead, pick up the burrito, and eat it five minutes later at home.
«Hi, I’d like to place an order to be picked up»
~OK, what’s your phone number?~
«Uh, it’s 415-​_​_​_​-​_​_​_​_​»
~Yes?~
«Yes what?»
~Yes?~
«What do I want?»
~I don’t know what you want.~
” :sigh: Oh… kay, can I have a chicken burrito…“
So I found it weird that I was supposed to know what «Yes» meant without context, but I was like, whatever. I apologized when I got there, saying I didn’t know what you were asking me.” He said «I wanted to know what you wanted.» Great. Helpful. Thanks, champ.
III) We called for delivery last night, and gave our address. «We don’t deliver there.» Careful readers will remember from incident B that my humble abode is but a five minute walk from Loco Taco. «Uh, we’re five blocks away; you don’t deliver to Duboce Park?» We gave him directions and got our food a good forty minutes later.
So the location can be convenient (obviously YMMV), especially if you’re at the Page a lot. And the food, for all the trouble it can be, is pretty good. But I think I’m gonna stick to El Castillito from now on, delivery be damned. (Normally I’d include an «unless I’m hungover» caveat, but they don’t deliver until 5pm anyway.)

Not exactly a destination restaurant, but reasonable burrito fare for a good price if you happen to be in the neighborhood.
Nopa is gentrifying more quickly these days (see new catchy name — ‘Nopa”), but most will only find their way here after a wait on line at DMV.
Go with the green chile chicken, salsa picante, pinto, veg, and rice. Tasty and filling in a healthy way. Don’t miss the TV tuned to Latin soap operas most of the day (great eye candy).

Surprisingly tasty!

Since there’s like no Mexican in our neighborhood besides this, I really wish it were better. The tostada salad is okay, the super taco’s are pretty decent, the super veggie burrito is yummy. It’s the other stuff… I don’t like the taste of a lot of their meats but maybe that’s just me because my boyfriend seems to like them alright. Big ups that they deliver, more and more often I no longer need to leave the comforts of home for food. Their prices are good too. Not bad but look out if some other Mexican moves in.