Exploring San Diego County one restaurant at a time

Las Cuatro Milpas

Rice and beans with tacos at Las Cuatro Milpas in San Diego, CA

The best Mexican food in San Diego has a line down the block

Las Cuatro Milpas
Hours: M-F 8:30 AM – 3 PM; Sat. 6 AM – 3 PM
Location: 1857 Logan Ave, San Diego, CA 92113

The entrance and above the sign outside the main building of Las Cuatro Milpas. The door and right window are covered in bumper stickers. Above the name of the restaurant is the founders Petra and Nati. There is a woman in a black outfit with a sunhat looking back. Matthew and Bob wait to go inside.

Las Cuatro Milpas, in the Barrio Logan neighborhood near downtown, is some of the best Mexican food in San Diego at an extraordinarily low price. 

The restaurant was opened nearly 90 years ago in 1933, before freeways, a Naval base and the Coronado bridge. The population of San Diego County then was a little over 200,000; today, it is 3.3 million.

Whether you’re visiting from out of town or live a good drive away up North or out East, it’s hard not to resist a trip to eat their legendary tortillas. The balance of fat, chewiness and charred texture in these when you bite into a burrito or taco sets it apart from any other Mexican place in San Diego.

Learn more about the history, food and what to do around the neighborhood below.

Parking, ordering and the menu

Candid shot of line for food outside Los Cuatro Milpas. There is a guy tugging at his shirt in the heat. A person is looking over at a small stall where a woman sells jewelry and other items to people in line at the restaurant. It stretches for 70-80 feet or so across the length of the restaurant. There are palm trees along the sidewalk.

Las Cuatro Milpas is open every day except Sunday for breakfast and lunch, and is most popular around lunchtime. It’s located off Logan Ave. on the I-5 freeway. Be ready for the exit because it will come up fast. The restaurant is right off the exit. Find street parking right outside or near the restaurant.

There is almost always a line outside, but don’t worry. At peak hours, it might take 30-40 minutes for you to order and get your food, but their line moves fast. The restaurant is a family business where they’ve perfected and maintained the same process and the same menu over decades.

That said, as soon as you walk through their door, you’ll have to know what to order. Unfortunately, they don’t give you time to think about the menu. In addition, the place is cash only, so be sure to stop by an ATM before coming.

Here are their selections with items and prices below:

The Las Cuatro Milpas menu with food and drink items and prices. See below for details.

Food

Meat options – Carnitas or chicken (tamales are pork only)

  • Taco or tamale – $2.50
  • Order of rolled tacos – $6.50 / 1 rolled taco – $1.50
  • Burritos – $6.50
  • Rice – S – $2 / M – $3.50 / L – $5.50
  • Beans – S – $3.50 / M – $4.50 / L – $7.50
  • Rice and beans – S – $4.50 / M – $5.50
  • Rice and beans and Tamale – $6.50
  • Chorizo con huevo – S – $4.50 / M – $6.50 / L – $10.75
  • Dozen tamales – $30
  • Dozen tortillas – $4
  • Free hot sauce available upon request (You can buy bottled hot sauce)

Drinks

  • Soda bottle – $2
  • Soda can – $1.50
  • Water $1

Atmosphere

The kitchen line at Las Cuatro Milpas as a worker puts down trays and takes customer orders. There is another woman in the background telling the owner at the cash register what is in each order as she calculates and asks for payment. There are pots with rice and beans, an extra-large wok with oil for frying tortillas and other containers with prepared food.

Stepping into Las Cuatro Milpas is like walking back in time for me. My dad first took me here when I was 12.

The place hasn’t at all changed in the 20 years I’ve gone there: same seating areas, same menu, same kitchen setup, same register and the same pictures hanging on the walls. Manuela, the owner, runs the cash register. She’s the granddaughter of the original owners, Petra and Nati Estudillo.

There’s a large setup in back where workers make tortillas. The building itself is bare. There are fold-up metal chairs and common tables as if someone was catering for the day. The building slightly reminds me of an adobe style house.

What’s even more amazing about this place is that all their business and popularity has come through word of mouth in the city and county over generations. They don’t have an active social media presence nor do they need one. 

When you come, it’s like visiting a living landmark of San Diego food culture.

Food

3 carnitas tacos, flour tortillas and a pork tamale. There is a water bottle off to the side. A hand is in the background of the shot.

What’s kept people coming back and recommending this place is the quality of their food. From the look of the marinated pork and the extra large wok filled with lard for frying tortillas, you would expect a heavy meal with lots of grease. Instead, you get succulent pork with a crunchy tortilla, a nice crunch of shredded lettuce and a little acidic brightness from some cotija cheese.

My 3 pork tacos were every bit of this deliciousness and more. When you add some of the heat from their hot salsa, it brings the whole meal together and makes the ingredients sing with more depth. If you’re into though, stay away because the heat will creep up on you.

My dad got a chicken burrito with lettuce and cheese (you can add sour cream as well). I tried a piece and it was juicy, perfect to go with the full flavor of their tortillas.

Jennifer got chorizo con huevos with rice and beans. In addition, we got a couple of tamales to try. The chorizo con huevos was surprisingly mild and full flavored. They really want the smoky, hearty flavor of the slow simmered chorizo and beans to stand out, and you can add salsa at your discretion.

The real star of this meal though was the tamale. The pork has more time in the sealed husk of the tamale to retain and soak in the juices of the marinade. If you cut it into it with a fork, you can see the rich steam rise off of it and bite into some of the best flavored pork in San Diego. The complexity of the marinade hits with so many different elements: smoky, sweet, rich, tender. 

Workers at Los Cuatro Milpas making tortillas. There are large pots, a large mechanical mixer, and a long table with large red mixing bowls and rollers where they press and make the tortillas. Ingredients are laid out on a large yellow table to the right.

Neighborhood

A mural on bridge pylons of the Coronado Bridge in Chicano Park, Barrio Logan. The mural depicts Indigenous gods or warriors overlooking the San Diego Bay and Coronado bridge. One is in more realistic colors and the other pylon depicts the same warrior in shining neon pink. The top says, "All the Way to the Bay" in reference to extending the murals along the bridge pylons to the edge of the San Diego Naval Base along the water.

Las Cuatro Milpas is located in Barrio Logan, a Chicano neighborhood near downtown San Diego. If you want a quick side trip after your meal, take a walk over to Chicano Park.

Chicano Park was created in the early 1970s after the Coronado Bridge was built, where its bridge supports and on-ramps created huge obstructions in the local neighborhood. Demonstrators in 1970 fought against the construction of a California Highway Patrol Station, and instead it became a community park and art space where the bridge pylons are canvases for murals done by local artists.

There have been many murals done over the years with hundreds of stories about Chicano and Indigenous heritage. It’s a way for the community tell their story. If you’d like to learn more, check out this site from an SDSU class.

A mural on the pylon bridges supporting a freeway in what is known as Chicano Park. The mural says "Brown Image" at the top showcasing a group of individuals into car culture who rode lowriders and supported the park and its artistic efforts. There is a rose and a bird on the bottom with depictions of men and women at the demonstration site looking at the newly constructed Coronado Bridge in 1970.

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Matthew and Bob, his dad in line at Las Cuatro Milpas. They smile. Matthew has sunglasses and a SD hat on. Bob has jeans, a black shirt and a green sunhat on. There are people milling about, waiting in the background.

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Be sure to check back next Wednesday for another post on a plant-based restaurant here in Oceanside called The Plot.

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