Mexican food and more…
Pupusas. Tortillas. Maracuya. Empanadas. Kolashampan. These are just a few of the words decorating the menu at Pupuseria El Salvador.
Rene Melendez, owner of Pupuseria El Salvador, and his employees greet every customer with a smile and a menu when they enter. Melendez knows his regulars by name and sits to chat with them while they wait for their food.
Melendez, who was born in El Salvador, moved to the United States at age eight and said he “grew up in the kitchen” and the restaurant business.
Melendez said his family owns seven restaurants in Virginia and Maryland and has been in business since 1989. He said his family lived in Southern California for a time, until Melendez said it was time to go.
“Traffic drove us out,” he said. “We came to Logan to visit and fell in love with it.”
Pupuseria El Salvador was originally opened by Melendez in Providence about two years ago. The restaurant moved to its current location at 95 E. 1400 North in the Pinecrest Shopping Center in Logan in January 2008.
Melendez described the food served at Pupuseria El Salvador as finger food. Pupusas, tortillas stuffed with pork, beans and cheese are the house favorite, he said. Cabbage and hot sauce are served on the side so customers can control the spiciness of their dishes, he said. Melendez said that all of the food at Pupuseria El Salvador is handmade, nothing just taken out of boxes or frozen. He said he is proud of one item in particular.
“Our taco’s are number one,” he said.
Other menu items unique to Pupuseria El Salvador include Fried Yucca Root, a deep fried vegetable that Melendez compares to a giant potato, Sopa De Pata, tripe soup with cow feet and vegetables, and Maracuya, a deliciously sweet passion fruit drink.
The restaurant attracts people of all sorts, he said. People come from all over, from Preston, Idaho to Salt Lake City, to eat at Melendez’s restaurant, he said. Melendez said a lot of men who served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Latin America, come into his restaurant and enjoy the authentic taste of the food. Despite the large Hispanic population in Cache Valley, Melendez said that the majority of people who eat at his restaurant of non-Latino descent.
According to Melendez, the small 10-table restaurant does a good business, serving between 40 and 60 people daily for lunch, and staying busy from open to close on weekends. The business is going well enough that he said he is hoping to open a restaurant in Ogden sometime next year.
Alli Gee, senior majoring in special education and elementary education, said she is a regular at Melendez’s restaurant. Gee said she has never had El Salvadorian food before, but they came once with friends and never stopped going back. She said her husband, Josh, likes the Latin atmosphere and it’s something different than hamburgers and french fries. Gee said she will always keep coming back.
“There is always good quality food,” she said. “You never have to wonder if it will be good.”
The restaurant is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
–kandicecrompton@aggiemail.usu.edu