S.F. Rising: Rocky's Frybread Settles in at El Rio

Sophia Hernandez

Rocky Yazzie in action.

​A weekly survey of bread in San Francisco ― the baked and the fried, the artisan and the novelty.

Rocky's Frybread
Source: Check @rockysfrybread for schedule
Price: Whatever you'd care to pay
Toast-appropriateness: not that kind of bread

Rocky Yazzie and his frybread stand materialized on the cart scene last fall, rocking a cooking stove and a skillet of oil, passing out frybread and Navajo tacos, luring people in with his brash charm. He joined the Fabric8 Friday-night rotation and appeared on the sidewalk outside El Rio. Then he was invited inside.

As of the new year, Rocky's Frybread is now setting up his stand in El Rio's courtyard ― Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On the off days, he'll show up at private events or other bars. "It's turned into a job," he says. "I'm almost going to have to start hiring people." He's also scouting out a bigger commercial kitchen space to prep in.

Yazzie offers his bread at no charge, though the suggested donation for a taco is $5. SFoodie has passed by Fabric8 on a night when Yazzie was exhorting people to take some frybread from him and pay for it by buying food from one of the other carts. How could we resist? The frybread, glossed with honey and speckled with powdered sugar, is just about as good as we imagine fried dough being: evenly golden, inflated with fat pockets of air, its crisp surface sweet and sticky.

He keeps agave syrup on hand for vegans, and his tacos are vegetarian ― beans, letuce, tomato, onions, cheese (he's happy to omit the latter for vegans, too). SFoodie has eaten frybread tacos topped with ground beef, but Yazzie, who grew up in a Diné community near Shiprock, New Mexico, says his family always made them just with beans.