Former La Cocina marketplace vendor is back with her own restaurant

A longstanding La Cocina food-hall vendor is back with her own brick-and-mortar restaurant nearby almost a year after the marketplace closed .

Estrella Gonzalez opened Estrellita’s Snacks at 483 Ellis St. on Tuesday, selling pupusas and tamales just a few blocks away from the marketplace’s former home at 101 Hyde St.

La Cocina is a local nonprofit that acts as an incubator for small food businesses operated by women and people of color. Its former food hall, which opened in April 2021, closed officially in September amid financial woes and security concerns while operating in the Tenderloin.

The nonprofit now runs a commercial kitchen in the same location, from which local catering businesses are able to cook.

Gonzalez told The Examiner on Tuesday that she was already in the process of looking for her own restaurant location last summer when she and seven other vendors learned La Cocina would no longer operate a food hall near Civic Center and that they would have to close their kiosks.

The others went elsewhere, she said, but she knew she wanted to stay in the neighborhood. In the nearly two years she worked at the marketplace, she amassed a loyal following of nearby customers who loved her food.

“We were gathering a lot of loyal customers who didn’t want us to go away permanently,” she said through her son, Angel, serving as a translator. “They told us that they couldn’t wait for us to get a location here.”

That location is now open Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Gonzalez said she planned to extend the hours to include dinner in the coming months.

In between the lunch and dinner rushes during Tuesday’s soft opening, brothers Jackson and Tristan Brody stopped into the new shop to tuck into a couple of pupusa plates and diet sodas.

“I never had the chance to visit [La Cocina], but I heard about it constantly,” said Jackson Brody, who said he lives in the East Bay and read about Estrellita’s soft opening online before deciding to come in.

Employees from Assemblymember Matt Haney’s San Francisco office stopped in to give Gonzalez a commendation and to order some pupusas, an agua fresca and a horchata.

“Our office and the Assemblymember have enjoyed eating at Estrella’s former establishment at La Cocina for several years and we are excited for her new venture in the Tenderloin,” a spokesperson for Haney’s office told The Examiner in a prepared statement.

Gonzalez said that she plans to open another cafe to sell some of the restaurant’s packaged goods, such as yucca chips, with another entrepreneur who will split the rent with her. An opening date is to be determined.

In the meantime, Gonzalez said she’s excited to share her food with the neighborhood again. She said she was especially proud of her pupusas, which she offers in 13 different varieties — although she said her favorite is the “most traditional,” which features beans, pork and cheese.

“We were honored to serve everybody at the kiosk like they were our family members,” Gonzalez said. “So now that we have our own doors open, we’re so excited to have them and welcome them back.”