Papusa restaurant open in Providence
To hear Rene Melendez tell it, there’s nothing so easy as opening a restaurant. Five months after opening Pupuseria El Salvador in Providence, Melendez said his papusas are selling like hotcakes, and it’s no surprise to him.
“Once you taste the food, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it,” Melendez said.
The restaurant in Providence specializes in the food of El Salvador, and as far as Melendez knows, is the only one in the Cache Valley. Melendez said pupusas – flat, round corn-tortillas filled with pork, beans and cheese – are the house specialty, as well as steak marinated in papaya sauce, and traditional fruit drinks made fresh at the restaurant. The restaurant also offers traditional desserts, sandwiches, and homemade hot sauce.
Melendez said his authentic El Salvadoran food is nothing like Mexican food.
“We’re not spicy, the texture of our food is totally different,” he said.
Echoly Vue said he and his friends dine at Pupuseria El Salvador about twice a week, and Melendez has their orders memorized. He said he’d recommend the restaurant to students.
“It’s really cheap prices and it fills you up,” Vue said. “Utah State students are always budget wise, and this place, you get a tamale that’s huge. It’s worth the trip.”
The highest-priced menu item is the $6.99 steak, which Melendez said is about 9 ounces. Papusas are $1.50. Diner Brian Purcer said the restaurant offers a good value.
“It’s really good. It’s very authentic, not Taco Bell crap,” Purcer said.
Melendez said he didn’t intend to open a restaurant, but did because his wife has a lot of family in the area, and he began to realize how many El Salvadorans there were around Logan. He said food is a big part of El Salvadoran culture.
“No matter who you are, almost everyone back home knows how to cook our food. Almost every family cooks all the time,” said Melendez.
Melendez said opening the restaurant was easy because his family owns four of them on the East Coast. He said he helped open the first one in Maryland where he grew up, so he already had an understanding of how to start a business, and the authentic recipes to do it with.
His family is the “backbone” of the restaurant, Melendez said, working in the kitchen where all the bread and tortillas are made fresh. Melendez said the fact that they make the tortillas themselves makes the difference in the food.
The restaurant sells about 300 pupusas on weekdays, which Melendez said are all handmade and made to order. He said on weekends he has customers come from as far away as Ogden, Layton and Tremonton for pupusas.
“Weekends we’re always busy, it gets so crazy in here. It’s unbearable,” he said.
But by now, Melendez said, things are running so smoothly he has gone back to working full-time at Wal-Mart, as well as managing the restaurant at night. He said he’s been working at Wal-Mart since he’s been in Logan. Though he cut down on his hours at the store during the opening of the restaurant, he said he feels he can do both, and doesn’t know if he’ll eventually quit working there.
Though he didn’t intend to open the restaurant, Melendez said in just five months Pupuseria El Salvador has become a staple in the area.
“Now we’ve got people telling us not to ever close,” he said.
And Melendez remains unsurprised by his quick success, citing the food he said he eats every day as the reason.
“It’s not hard to start a business,” Melendez said. “It’s basically what you know. I know how to cook. Everyone in El Salvador knows how to cook. If you went to El Salvador, this is what you would get there.”
Pupuseria El Salvador is offering a 10 percent discount for students with their school ID. It is located at 2 N. Main St. in Providence. It is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Takeout can be ordered by calling (435) 752-0676.
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu