Tacos 1986 Shocks Westwood’s Dull Dining Scene With New Location in Two Weeks

Hit former street stand Tacos 1986 is readying a surprise second location on the Westside, with plans to open in matter of weeks. Eater has confirmed that owners Victor Delgado and Jorge “Joy” Alvarez-Tostado have taken a space in Westwood, not far from UCLA, and that they’ve accelerated their opening timetable to actually come online by early February.

Delgado confirmed the news of Tacos 1986’s expansion to Eater this week, saying that he and Alvarez-Tostado are taking the closed Simplethings space at 10874 Kinross Avenue. They’re already installing new kitchen equipment (and that all-important al pastor trompo), and Delgado says that they’re likely to open after the Super Bowl. That would put the Westwood location well ahead of the already-known upcoming location on Beverly Boulevard just west of La Brea, which is planning for a March reveal.

If both timelines hold, it would mean that Tacos 1986 has gone from operating as an underground stand in Hollywood in late 2018 to three standalone locations — and a weekly slot at Smorgasburg on Sundays at the Row in Downtown — across the city. The Downtown LA everyday restaurant at 609 S. Spring Street opened last summer.

That’s not to say that Tacos 1986 came out of nowhere. Fans and media members have been lining up for the place since almost day one, with Los Angeles Times co-critic Bill Addison saying in a review a year ago that the mushroom taco from 1986 “eventually might be included among the essentials of the Los Angeles taco lexicon.”

Look for a confirmed opening date for Tacos 1986 in Westwood soon, and expect daily hours from 11 a.m. to midnight once it arrives. Eventually there will be longer-running late night hours for the weekend crowds as well.

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