about tacos 1986

Tacos 1986 is a Tijuana Style Taco restaurant founded in Los Angeles, 2018. Tacos 1986 distinguishes itself by making hand-made corn tortillas fresh to order, flame grilled Carne Asada (Grilled Steak) and Pollo Asado (Grilled Chicken), Adobada (Pork Al Pastor) cooked off the trompo, our famous Mushroom (Vegan) tacos, and always fresh onion, cilantro, guacamole & salsa. 1986 is also the year Victor Delgado was born.

On September 13th of 2018, Joy made tacos for the first time in LA for a group of friends & family of Victor’s, this was the night they saw the potential of what Tacos 1986 could be by partnering together. A few months later in November of 2018, and after not being able to secure the capital to open a brick and mortar, there were no more options left but to setup in a parking lot with taco carts. The tacos and Joy’s energy made waves throughout the city which attracted renowned chefs, food critics and food media to the humble taco stand in Hollywood, making their first media write ups on Eater and LA Taco. Adversity was no stranger to the duo, after a month of setting up in the parking lot, the parking lot landlord saw Tacos 1986 blow up and soon demanded they halted operations and come to more favorable rent terms. After not seeing eye to eye with the landlord, Tacos 1986 posted on social media they would not be able to setup and soon found support from various friends and supporters thought out the city. Continuing with the taco cart setup, Tacos 1986 had an opportunity to join the popular weekly food festival Smorgasburg. Finally, they landed in Koreatown in late December of 2018, they struck a short-term agreement with the owners of the 611 S Western building and setup every night on the sidewalk from January 1st of 2019 until adversity struck again. The health department received an “anonymous complaint” that they were selling food illegally (not foodborn illness related) and decided the shut down operations on March 3rd 2019 (to this date it is not known who made that call to the Department of Health). That was the moment Tacos 1986 knew it was time to move from taco stand to brick & mortar. The first storefront opened in Downtown LA, in June of 2019. The second storefront was in Westwood in February of 2020, then in the Beverly Grove neighborhood in April 2020, Burbank in July 2020, Pasadena in November of 2020, Santa Monica in April 2022, Sherman Oaks in February of 2024, Northridge in March 2025, and more coming.

our journey from parking Lot taco carts to brick-and-morter across los angeles