[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]he popular West Adams taco cart L.A. Birria was temporarily shut down Monday after its van and everything in it was apparently stolen, according to co-owner Eduardo Anaya.
“We woke up today and everything is gone,” Anaya told L.A. Taco in an interview. “Everything was in the van — the cart, the generators — everything we’ve built up in the past few months.”
Anaya said he woke up at 5:30 am Monday morning in West Adams, like he does every morning. “I was like, ‘Where’s the van? We left it right here.’ And it was gone.” He said it had been parked near the corner of Jefferson and Crenshaw at just past midnight. “I park there all the time,” he said.
Anaya and his partner Kevin Oajaca spent the morning searching the neighborhood and calling every tow truck company they could find. “We looked everywhere we can think, man. Now I’m on my way to file a police report.”
L.A. Birria opened in January with just a pickup truck, a handmade wooden sign, and a small cart. It quickly became a local hit which drove Anaya and Oajaca to invest their time into long hours and their money into newer equipment.
“Everything that was in there was pretty expensive,” Anaya said. “I guess we have to start at the bottom again.”
Anaya expects L.A. Birria to reopen Tuesday morning using its original truck and cart. “We’ve been working so much every single day from 5:30 am to midnight, that we have a little bit of money saved up to reopen it.”
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