Gustavo Arellano: He's L.A. food royalty. He began with a taco cart. Let street vendors thrive
LOS ANGELES — When I first met Walter Soto in 2019, the Mexican immigrant would park his El Ruso taco cart in an industrial section of Boyle Heights, where the customers were as likely to be unhoused people as they would be foodies.
His quasi-restaurant was tiny — about as big as the walk-in cooler at a restaurant — and there were days where Soto, a jovial, red-headed giant who looks more like an SEC football coach than a chef, wondered why he had left his job as a construction foreman.
But through hustle and heart, Soto became food royalty in Los Angeles. He quickly graduated to a bigger trailer in a nicer part of Boyle Heights. — think fatty carne
