Drive into the hilly streets of El Sereno and look for a house with a bright yellow sign, there’s a strong chance burgers are nearby. Especially if that sign has an arrow and a burger on it.
This elusive sign belongs to Hangaburs, a great new smashburger pop-up by Alicia Lopez and Cecilia Ledezma. The burger stand’s name is a verbal estimation of the word hamburger, a play on how a child would say the word.
The married couple decided a pandemic was the perfect time to unveil their burger concept outside of their El Sereno home. It began when Lopez was furloughed from her graphic designer job at Disney because of COVID-19. Suddenly with extra time and no excuses, she decided to debut her recipe for a smashburger she had been developing for three years.
Before their first pop-up, the Hangaburs team was intimidated by how male dominated the smash burger scene was (and continues to be).
“It made us question if being women would somehow keep us from being taken seriously or from succeeding in the space,” Lopez tells L.A. Taco, “but add onto that [we’re] POC and gay. We really weren’t sure if our sexual orientation would be a factor in people trying our food.”