Teo Rodriguez Díaz Jr.’s taqueria journey started when he couldn’t satisfy his craving for the tacos he grew up eating in his hometown of San Luis Río Colorado — a border town in Sonora, Mexico directly south of Yuma, Arizona. So he decided to fill it himself by serving and selling flour-tortilla tacos with meat cooked over a mesquite charcoal flame. He dubbed his new taco shop Sonoratown.
On Tuesday, eight years after opening their famed, flagship location in Downtown Los Angeles, Díaz and his girlfriend Jennifer Feltham are opening their third storefront and first location in Long Beach.
The expansive dining room space on Third Street across from Ammatoli in Downtown Long Beach is a big departure from their first taqueria, which totaled 400 square feet.
When the co-owners opened the small shop in L.A.’s Fashion District in 2016 they were taking a big leap of faith.
Much of the first few months were spent explaining to potential customers all of the items they don’t have, including corn tortillas or sour cream to add to tacos or burritos.
Feltham ran the day-to-day operations in the restaurant while Díaz worked as a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles.
“That was probably the thing that Jen had the hardest time with at the beginning was explaining to people: This is our menu and this is the story behind it.” Díaz said.
Since then, Sonoratown has been honored as one of the L.A. Times’ 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles, written about in Eater LA and featured in Netflix’s Taco Chronicles.
They take special care to ensure their flour tortillas are as close to authentic Sonoran flour tortillas as possible. In the past, that included Feltham driving roughly five hours to the Arizona-Mexico border twice a month to pick up flour for their tortillas.
Recently, the company they purchased flour from began importing to the United States and has a shipment on the way in time for the Long Beach opening on Tuesday.
Sonoratown also offers chiltepín salsa made from a small, berry-like chile pepper native to Sonora that packs a punch.
Prices will be the same as the other locations in Downtown Los Angeles and mid-Wilshire, with tacos for $3.50, a burrito 2.0 for $12.50 and quesadillas for $4.50.
More special offerings include the $5.50 Chivichanga containing chicken or beef guisado with blistered tomato, smokey Anaheim chile, Monterey jack and mild cheddar cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla.
Taco and burrito fillings also include poblano chile, cabeza, tripa and a special chorizo blend made with the help of The Chori-Man, who runs a restaurant in San Pedro.
Sonoratown’s name came about before even the menu.
Díaz was at Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown when he saw a plaque referencing Sonoratown, a neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles where migrants from Sonora settled in the mid-1800s on their way to Northern California during the gold rush.
Fun fact: Díaz wrote the first Wikipedia post on the neighborhood.
Díaz and Feltham have adorned the Long Beach location with framed prints from artist Ernesto Yerena, whom they met at their first location. Their logo and menu were done by another Downtown L.A. artist: Mikolaj Wyszynski.
“It’s felt like every step that we took in the beginning was charmed in some way,” Feltham said.
When the couple was looking for another location to open a taqueria, Long Beach was the logical choice. Díaz remembered hanging out on Fourth Street when he was in college at Cal State Long Beach, frequenting the now-closed Portfolio Coffeehouse on the corner of Fourth Street and Junipero Avenue.
That location was the original target for the taqueria, but their real estate agent showed them the space that formerly housed Under The Sun on Third Street and they were sold.
The couple, who met while working in a restaurant in 2006, are also in the process of finding an apartment nearby to help get the new location up and running. Last year, Díaz quit his job in L.A. to focus on running the restaurant full-time along with Feltham.
Their business lease comes with access to an event space behind the restaurant and they already have plans to host a comedy show there on Oct. 4.
Sonoratown, 244 E. Third St., will be open from Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. until it is fully staffed. After that, it will have the same hours as other Sonoratown locations: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.