[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]he eggshell yellow house off Long Beach Boulevard doesn’t stand apart from its Compton neighbors; there’s nothing to suggest that a secret guarded for more than 100 years survives between its walls, with the last person who knows how to unlock it.
His name is Juan Garcia, the owner and chef of Goat Mafia. A fourth-generation birriero born in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, Garcia was raised in this same Hub City home after his family came over to the U.S., shortly before his second birthday some 32 years ago.
To know his story, you’ll need to go back to the early 1950s to his hometown of Tamazula de Gordiano, Jalisco, when his grandfather first fell in love with his grandmother. To ensure the couple’s future, her stepfather passed on the birria recipe he’d been preparing and selling successfully throughout his life. A family recipe passed down to him from generations past. In a state rich with competing birrerias, the recipe was only revealed to kin.
In time, Juan’s grandfather passed the same recipe on to his own two sons, who found success with it in Jalisco and South Los Angeles, respectively. When Juan’s father, a carpenter by trade who sold the birria in his off hours from the same purple Ford Ranger Juan still drives, reached the end of his life, he stated a goal of passing the recipe on to Juan’s sister, before it died with him. But time ran out.
Garcia now prepares this same recipe himself in a clay pot in his kitchen, making it available to birria fans through Goat Mafia’s catering arm, events and sporadic pop-ups.