A fellow named Campos wanted to dethrone him in Culver City. All I'd be doing was filling out reports and giving depositions.''īy the early 1980's, several employees had left to start their own burrito stands.Ī chain called Los Burritos started by former employees began moving into his territory in Hollywood. Montoya said he did not go to the police. Montoya recalled: ''The cook took me aside and said, 'Here's how it works: You take the order you take the cash and don't put it in the register. One night in the mid-1970's, he said, he showed up unannounced at one of his restaurants, put on an apron and started working as a cashier. It was impossible to run a place from a distance. Catering orders poured in.īut as the business grew, it became harder to monitor quality and expenses, Mr. Transplanted Angelenos wrote odes to them and ordered them shipped across the country in dry ice. The place became a late-night haven for police officers, students and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who arrived in tuxedos after performances.īurrito King's signature meal was machacha burrito, made with simmered, slightly sweet beef, refried beans, green peppers and onions. He kept his job at the bank and managed the walk-up restaurant from his home. Montoya bought the stand and the name Burrito King. One of his customers owned a failing taco stand at Sunset and Alvarado in Echo Park, a diverse middle-class neighborhood west of downtown Los Angeles. Montoya left the Navy and moved to Los Angeles, joining United California Bank as a junior loan officer. Montoya noticed that a steady stream of Mexican laborers lined up to buy them. Nobody was making much money on these 50-cent concoctions, but Mr. Then, he said, ''I got a beautiful letter from Uncle Sam welcoming me to the United States Army.'' He joined the Navy instead, and was stationed in San Diego, where he was introduced to the fast-food burrito, a dollop of fried pinto beans on a flour tortilla, sometimes dressed with a spoonful of shredded cheese. He moved to Memphis to continue his studies at Christian Brothers College, which would not accept his credits from Colombia, and he ended up working for a pharmaceutical company. Julian Montoya arrived in Miami in 1960 from his native Colombia, a 22-year-old architecture student looking for a new life. On the upscale Westside, national chains like Baja Fresh, Chipotle and Poquito Mas have staked out the strip malls and the Saturday soccer crowd.īut before such mass marketing, there was Burrito King.
Poorer neighborhoods have a taco stand on every block and a catering truck at every construction site and car wash. No one ever said the restaurant business was easy, and the cut-rate burrito trade is particularly brutal in Los Angeles. Montoya's biggest project now is the restaurant concession at a city golf course in the San Fernando Valley, a venture he described as thin in profits and thick with bureaucracy. The Montoyas are living in a two-bedroom bungalow behind a Burrito King on Hyperion Avenue. The Burrito King chain, once 20 restaurants, has shrunk to two. The 1994 Northridge earthquake wrecked his new house a month after he had turned down the chance to buy an earthquake insurance policy. His employees stole his profits and his recipes, he said. He failed to capitalize on a chance to franchise his operation or take it public.
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Montoya recalled in a series of conversations. He and his wife, Arita, had moved into a big house in Santa Clarita, 20 miles from the crowds and traffic of the city.Ĭompetition grew fierce in the burrito business, Mr. He ran the classiest Latin American restaurant in Los Angeles, Caché, a white-tablecloth cafe that attracted the likes of Julio Iglesias and Gloria Estefan. He was a senior official of the Los Angeles Olympics, with choice seats at all events.
Starting with one taco stand at Sunset Boulevard and Alvarado Street in the late 1960's, he had built a burrito empire stretching from Anaheim, Calif., to Bogotá, Colombia. Montoya, also known as the Burrito King, was on top of the world.