Roy Choi’s New LA Taco Stand Opens Tonight. Here’s Everything to Know.

Chef Roy Choi is opening his first Los Angeles food project in nearly eight years tonight, Tuesday, March 12. The Tacos Por Vida stand will be set up at 3434 Overland Avenue starting at 5 p.m., alongside the Kogi Taqueria truck. Its succinct menu draws inspiration from Choi’s personal and culinary background, Kogi’s distinct DNA, and the beloved local tradition of backyard birthday parties helmed by a skillful “taco man.” Tacos and burritos are served on handmade flour and corn tortillas and come filled with asada, chicken, mushrooms, or al pastor. Both are expertly sauced with verde and rojo salsas, slicked with a creamy, garlicky guacamole, and dusted with custom salt blends. Choi tells Eater that Tacos Por Vida moved from an idea to a full-blown business in just two months, with recipe development completed over two frenzied days.

“It felt very similar to the early days of Kogi,” says Choi of Tacos Por Vida’s surprise soft launch last week on Overland Avenue. “It felt good to be back to the essence — not that we ever left. I guess it just felt like someone that started making movies going back to doing standup at the Comedy Store.”

Choi is the first to admit that the city’s restaurant scene has grown and evolved since his last LA restaurant project, Kogi Taqueria, opened in 2016. (Between 2010 and 2019, Choi also operated the rice bowl shop Chego in Palms and then Chinatown, A-Frame in Culver City, Sunny Spot in Venice, and Locol in Watts, along with the food and beverage offerings at the Line Hotel in Koreatown, including three on-site restaurants.) He cites the rise of social media influencers, Gen Z’s coming of age, and the inescapability of TikTok as some of the major cultural shifts. Add to that another layer surrounding the cultural relevancy of restaurants, a fraught topic depicted in shows like The Bear. “The seed of [Tacos Por Vida] started when we were thinking, ‘Do people even know who Kogi is anymore? Do 16-year-olds know who Kogi is right now?’” Choi says. “If they don’t, it’s kind of a shame because we’re a big part of Los Angeles, we’re a big part of the culture. I wasn’t mad about it, it was more of a riddle for me.”

Pondering Kogi’s legacy in LA’s fast-changing dining landscape pushed Choi and his team to begin thinking about their next move. “How do we reintroduce ourselves without having to show our ass and do all the stupid things to bring attention to us? How can we just be ourselves?” he says, repeating the questions he and his team members asked themselves in Tacos Por Vida’s earliest phase.

In addition to securing Kogi’s rightful place on the mantle for a new generation of Angelenos, Choi viewed the new project as a way to provide more opportunities for career growth and economic stability for Kogi’s dedicated workers, many of whom have been with the company for a decade or more. “We have very little turnover at Kogi, most of our staff have been with us since day one, that’s 15 years,” Choi says. Further, he was motivated to offer a more affordable catering option for Angelenos hosting events in the current economic climate. “It’s hard out there with people losing their jobs, prices going up; everyone’s got to rebudget, rethink things month to month,” says Choi. “We just wanted to make food that people could afford and enjoy. We want to offer a lower price and catering option for people to use for parties.”

Choi, who currently oversees a fleet of Kogi trucks throughout Los Angeles, Kogi Taqueria truck at Alchemy Media, Kogi at the Alibi Room, and the restaurant Best Friend and the Chef Truck in Las Vegas, sat down with Eater to share more about his latest passion project — including Tacos Por Vida’s influences, menu, and future, and how he views success now, 15 years after his iconic brand’s start.

On diners’ initial reaction

Roy Choi: We were trying to open real quiet, just post up next to the Kogi truck. We intentionally didn’t announce it or anything. On the first practice day, we fed maybe 50 people. We had a lot of dudes working on the streets, like doing the paving, fixing potholes, working on the apartment buildings on Overland, all getting off work right as we were setting up. They would come over and eat — that’s the most discerning guest I was worried about, but also our Kogi fans. Everyone loved it. I can’t tell you how nerve-wracking that was — and then to see that bite, to see their eyes, and to hear, “Fucking A,” “Fuck yeah,” “What the fuck?” Whenever I can make people say, “Fuck,” we’re good. And it did that.

On timing

The last new thing that I had here in Los Angeles was Kogi Taqueria, Chego, and the Line Hotel about seven years ago. That’s a long time since then. I opened in Vegas, but I have always wanted to do something back in LA where I live. I didn’t want to force anything; I wasn’t ready. Closing restaurants is really, really hard. I didn’t want to jump into it and open something and then have to close it in a couple of years if it didn’t work. I just wanted to take our time with it. Sometimes you’re driven by feelings and so it’s just a long stretch between album number two and album number three, but like, once the feelings are there, you’re just possessed, you can’t stop, so that’s what this felt like. And I like it a lot.

On the name

“Por vida” is a slang term that has been around the streets in Chicano culture for a long time and has been with me my whole life growing up in parts of Norwalk, Anaheim, and LA. I don’t even think it’s grammatically correct in Spanish but it’s a term that we use out here and it’s a term that has always stayed with me. For us, it’s like Kogi por vida, tacos por vida, tacos for life. Kogi por vida became a signal and a siren for everything that we are. When we decided to do this taco thing, the name was something that came from the inside out — it was our team.

Kogi

Kogi

On inspiration

The Kogi team has been bubbling creatively to do something. We’ve been throwing around the idea of opening Chego again. Do we do a Kogi-Chego hybrid, kind of like a Baskin-Robbins-TOGO’s-Kentucky Fried Chicken-type thing? And then Tacos Por Vida came up. They’re like, “Why don’t we just take it back to the essence?” How do we separate it from Kogi but at the same time make it feel like a part of [the Kogi family]? Taco Por Vida comes from our culture, it comes from our people. We’re bringing it back to the essence of like wood fire, charcoal grill, backyard taco-man style. The basic meats that we all grew up on — asada, pollo, al pastor — and handmade tortillas.

The food is the best version of tacos that we would make for each other. We’re not trying to be authentic Mexican taquero, we’re not trying to be a regional style or this or that. If you’re going to talk regional style, we’re a “Backyard of a La Puente House Birthday Party for a Kid” authentic style of taco. We were thinking about the trompo but you know, that’s not really who we are. We’re really good at grilling and planchas and things like that. And as a cook, I don’t like to do things that I don’t feel like I can fully execute all the way through the soul.

On menu development

Like Kogi, Tacos Por Vida happened on the fly. Once the seed was planted, things percolated in my head, the recipes started forming. We have all been together for so long. It just straight-up takes one text: “Yo, Eddie, Milton: Get me [these ingredients].” I show up and then just start throwing stuff together. Development took two sessions. We worked fast, and it was ready to go.

I’ve been cooking for so long that I can go in and take the first crack — start mixing things without measurements and then get to a place where it tastes like something, and it tastes really good. And then from there, you just start tweaking and then you get to a place where it’s like 95 percent there. And you just make it over and over and over again — add more salt, less salt, do different seasonings, add more chile, take less chile, add more herbs. You just keep tweaking until you get the one that you really love, and then just seal that thing. So that was Friday and Monday, and then we started serving on Tuesday.

On proteins and marinades

I’m proud of the meats. I’m proud of the marinades. Our al pastor has our signature touch to it, a mix of Middle Eastern, Mexican, and Korean flavors with hints of gochujang, harissa, achiote, and tons of garlic, herbs, oranges, limes, pineapple, fruit, and vinegar. But the Korean is not forward; it’s like somewhere behind the scenes, like a really faint harmonica in the way, way back of the orchestra. We have an asada I just can’t stop eating. The mushroom, chicken, and steak have the same asada marinade with beer, a bunch of fresh and dried chiles, oregano, herbs, and lime.

On sauces

I’m a really saucy person. For Tacos Por Vida, we’re going to sauce it up with two salsas and our version of a creamy guac. For the salsas, it’s a charred tomatillo salsa verde and a salsa roja with dried arbol chiles, Anaheim chiles, garlic, tomato, salt, pepper, and oregano. Tons of cilantro in both of them; they’re more watery [in texture] but full of flavor. And then we have a creamy guac. I’ve been wanting to do our version so this is like a roasted garlic confit-like salsa verde mixed with avocado, a bunch of other chiles, and tons of cilantro. This one is thick, it has an emulsification to it, and it gets dolloped right on top.

On composing the perfect bite

I want to tailor the whole bite for you. I’m designing it in the way that I like to eat a taco: I get the taco from the taquero; I put on the salsa, creamy guac, cilantro, and onion; I squeeze two limes; and then I take the little packet of salt and I sprinkle those over the top. And so that’s what we’re giving you. Every taco comes with both salsas, creamy guac, lime, and radishes on a handmade tortilla with your choice of meat or mushroom. Every taco is designed the same way, we just have different salts for the different meats — the chile salt goes with the pork and the fleur de sel and pepper mix goes with the asada. This is our taco, this is our style. It comes fully composed as-is and that’s the way I want you to eat it. All I ask you to do is squeeze a little lime that we provide.

Kogi

On meeting expectations

There will be a lot of people that drive out, wait in line, or drive miles from like Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, Westminster, or the Valley, and we want to make sure that every taco is delicious. Every taco has to be right. There are a lot of little nuances: the structure of the tortilla, maintenance of the coals, the seasonings, all these things. We’re working on all that. That’s really where my mind is right now. I’m not really focused on the business things; it’s more just the little, little details of the food. A lot of cooks can relate to and appreciate that. What’s great about what we do at Kogi is we’re independent, so we can put our attention on things that we decide are important for ourselves and our culture.

On success

I just want people to love the food. That’s it. I’m looking at this through the lens of if you hired me to cook for your kids’ birthday party. Success to me is when every person who waits in line or comes by the stand and takes a bite, their eyes go in the back of their head. I want them talking with their mouth full, I want them to be yelling obscenities, I want them stomping their feet. Because if you have that, then everything else will fall into play.

Success also means longevity. That’s why we’re taking a slow start, we’re not rushing. I don’t think people really understand how hard it is to let go of or close a restaurant, whether it’s been nine months or nine years. And I know I will have to go through that again one day because nothing will last forever, but I don’t want that to happen because of lack of effort or lack of people liking it. Success is not only what the product is, but it’s also my commitment to it. It’s not being spread too thin.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tacos Por Vida is located at 3434 Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034, and will be open on March 12, 13, 28, and 29 from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.