Phillip Charles Cejudo is food truck royalty.
He grew up in Highland Park, sitting on a milk crate inside his father’s legendary blue mariscos truck, El Mar Azul. Growing up, he helped feed the neighborhood on the truck’s shrimp stock-based cocteles and cucumber mayo-spread tostadas. As an adult, he helped clean up and detail the truck, while improving its operations.
Phillip’s parents, Felipe and Rosie, closed and sold El Mar Azul last year after 41 years of service. Cejudo and his sisters would not inherit the big blue dragon his parents commanded, forcing him to forge a new path as a chef and entrepreneur with the knowledge he’d acquired along the way.
“[Taking over the truck] would have been against his wishes,” Phillip tells L.A. TACO about his dad. “It was his baby, and he wanted it to go to the grave with them.”