Topline:
We have long a list of some of the best pozoles that the city offers, with each pozole showing its own distinct identity.
The backstory: The pre-Hispanic dish remains one of the most popular dishes in Mexican gastronomy, associated with celebrations, gatherings, and holidays.
The basics: . There are three common iterations throughout Mexico: red, green, and white. The differences are seen regionally, with their variants in proteins, spices, and chiles.
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Pozole season is nigh!
Studies show that fridges in Mexican households are a game of chance around this time of year. Is this margarine in the margarine container? No. It’s pozole. Sour cream here? Nope. You ran out three weeks ago. It’s pozole, again.
Pozole is a dish associated with celebrations, gatherings, and holidays, and comes from the Nahuatl word pozolli, which translates to “frothy” or “boiled”.
It remains one of the most popular dishes in Mexican gastronomy. There are three common iterations throughout Mexico: red, green, and white. The differences are seen regionally, with their variants in proteins, spices, and chiles.
We have a long list of some of the best pozoles that the city offers, with each pozole showing its own distinct identity.
We’re starting strong with this Los Angeles gem, Pozolería Doña Ana, in Panorama City and Pacoima. The family behind the restaurant believes that Mexican food provides more than just a meal. They believe it offers a celebration of life, and you can taste that.
The business makes their famous pozole rojo estilo Nayarit with your pick of pork and chicken. To try a mix of the best, we suggest getting their loaded pozole rojo mixed with pork meat, pata (pork foot), and cuerito (pork skin). This is the only dedicated pozolería in Los Angeles County and the best pozole in the San Fernando Valley.
Doña Ana started selling pozole in the streets to help her with her mental health and now she's developed a huge following. She sells both red and green varieties made with pork or chicken. We definitely recommend pairing her pozole with her tacos dorados de picadillo for the complete pozole-induced euphoria effect.
Location:
14551 Nordhoff St, Panorama City, 91402
10345 Laurel Canyon Blvd, Pacoima, 91331
Hours: Monday through Sunday 7 a.m. - 8 p.m.
While primarily known for its phenomenal birria de chivo, El Parian's secret weapon is an exceedingly good pozole. It has no business being so good, in fact. The pozole is a classic pork-based red, the caldo rich with pork, chiles, and spices, which are never overbearing.
The most intriguing thing about this pozole is the use of a particularly large variety of hominy that looks like freshly popped popcorn. A server explained that they start cooking it very early in the morning for several hours to achieve this glory in a bowl. It should go without saying that an order of birria is also mandatory.
Location: 1528 W. Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, 90015
Hours: Daily 9 a.m. - 8.30 p.m.
This neighborhood Oaxacan eatery offers pozole made from pork head. Once the bowl arrives you’ll notice a faint funk that becomes more prominent in the caldo, adding an extra dimension to the broth, and reminding us of the strong fishy flavors found in the best bowls of ramen.
The first bite of pork head bursts with concentrated porkiness; the meat is tender and slightly chewy. A thick layer of rendered, stained pork fat consistently floats on top of the bowl. This pozole is one of the most unique on the list because the offal adds a dimension that isn’t present with traditional proteins.
Location: 3337 1/2 W. 8th St. Los Angeles 90005
Hours: Daily 8 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Tamales Elena is one of the first regional food trucks in L.A. to celebrate Afro-Mexican influences from the state of Guerrero. While this place is recognized and named for for its signature tender banana leaf-wrapped tamales, its pozoles, offered in green, red, and white varieties, are equally famous, including a pork pozole topped with chicharrón, one with chicken, and a veggie-filled pozole.
The family behind these great bowls were even featured on Netflix's Taco Chronicles for their regional Mexican sazón.
Location: Wilmington Ave & E. 110th St. Angeles, 90059
Hours: Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Shrimp pozole is a staple in coastal communities in Mexico, such as Baja, Nayarit, Jalisco, and Sinaloa. Yet for some reason, a seafood version never caught on in the States. That is until Cefishé came around and rectified this crime against L.A. County's mariscos and pozole-loving communities. If you love brothy, Mexican-style shrimp cocktails and need something that is a little bit more substantial during winter, then consider this your new addiction.
Location: 197 E. 2nd St. Pomona, 91766
Hours: Mon - Wed closed; Thurs - Sunday 12 noon - 8 p.m.
Contrary to what Chicharroland's name might suggest, it is not a theme park dedicated to fried pork skin, though this charming restaurant in South Central does specialize in chicharrón. On weekends they offer two different pozoles: a pork-based rojo and a chicken-based verde.
The pozole verde has a formidable broth that is more subtle than what you’ve probably encountered before. It leans more on the strength of the chicken broth, spiked with a subtle taste of tomatillos and cilantro. Little greenish beads of rendered chicken fat swirl after each hearty spoonful. It can be probably a little spicier, sure, but it’s nothing a scattering of chile flakes from the table's shaker can’t fix.
Location: 4714 S. Main St. Los Angeles, 90037.
Hours: Daily 8 a.m. - 6 p.m; closed Thursdays. Pozole is only served on weekends
Cacoa Mexicatessen is a few years shy of classic L.A. restaurant status. They were the first on the scene to bring duck carnitas here back in 2010, and their pozole verde is equally enticing. From a glance alone, you can sense the weight of the pozole. The caldo is cloudy green with a spicy punch. It has a strong porky presence and plenty of granos hidden under the broth, cooked just right —slightly firm and not overly gummy: al diente. This place gets bonus points for offering a super-solid local craft beer list and Mexican wine to go with the food.
Location: 1576 Colorado Blvd. Los Angeles, 90041
Hours: Closed Mondays; Sun, Tues, Wed, Thurs 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Pez Cantina has a fantastic pozole verde. This place flies low, mostly catering to downtown power lunchers and executives blowing off steam after work over their enticing happy hour menu. But don’t sleep on their pozole. The broth is on the thicker side and there are moments when you wonder what percentage of the caldo is just salsa verde. (If you’ve caught yourself with tendencies to sip on your taqueria’s salsa verde cups, this pozole is for you!).
It is a smaller portion, but don’t let the size fool you because it packs a punch; slightly acidic from the tomatillos but spicier than expected. While it’s not ridiculously spicy, the heat builds with each spoonful of the thick green broth. It’s a chicken-broth but not overly chicken-y.
Location:
DTLA: 401 S Grand Ave. Los Angeles, 90071
Pasadena: 61 N Raymond Ave, Pasadena, 91103
Hours:
DTLA: Mon 11.30 a.m. - 2.30 p.m.; Tues, Wed, Thurs 11.30 a.m. - 9 p.m.; Fri 11.30 a.m. - 10 p.m.; Sat 4 p.m. - 10 p.m.; Sun closed. Pozole is only served on Sat.
Pasadena: Mon closed; Tues – Fri 4 p.m. – 10 p.m.; Sat 11 a.m –10:30 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m. - 9.30 p.m.
Antojitos Los Cuates' small, peach-colored, Compton restaurant is decorated with yellow lettering and iconic scenes of Jalisco. Upon entering, you automatically know some amazing antojitos are about to pull your heartstrings from the feel of the dining room alone. While their tacos de requesón are what people come for and are highly recommended by L.A. TACO contributing writer Xitlalic Guijosa, their pozole blanco doesn’t stay behind.
It is a bowl of love made with nixtamal de maiz morado (purple corn nixtamal) and topped with repollo (cabbage), cebolla (onion), rabanos (radishes), and limon (lime). The perfectly simmered pork in your bowl makes for a broth so good you’ll be sucking on the bones to get every bit of it out.
Location: 1811 N. Long Beach Blvd. Compton, 90211
Hours: Tuesday - Friday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. - 10 p.m.
This neighborhood spot is great for breakfast, but on weekends they offer white pozole made with pata (pork feet), which means some of the collagen is rendered into the broth, though not to the point of palpable thickness.
The pozole is served with plenty of accoutrements: onions, cilantro, tostadas, avocado slices, rabanos, oregano, lettuce, and a specially tailored red salsa to crank up the heat. The floating bits of avocados offer a nice creamy texture that pairs pleasantly with the chunks of pork. The grano is on the tougher side, call it al dente. If you have the inclination to order a huarache with carnitas, I’d urge you to follow that intuition.
Location: 6480 Santa Fe Ave. Huntington Park, 90255
Hours: Daily 8 a.m. - 9 p.m.
This green pozole from Guayaba Kitchen will fool you. Recommended by L.A. TACO contributing writer Noe Adame, this vegan bowl of pozole is so popular that, in the past, it sold out in just one hour. It has all that a good bowl of green pozole has to offer, made with mushrooms (the star of the show) and spices and herbs homegrown in the owner's backyard. You can top it with the classics, chopped red onion, and a couple of squeezed limes, and top it all with chopped repollo for that familiar crunch. Y sin faltar, you can’t forget some chili de arbol oil to add extra heat.
Noe tells L.A. TACO: “I didn’t think a vegan pozole would ever taste like the real deal, much less, dare I say, better than any meat-based pozole I have ever had! Spicy, earthy, flavorful, and best of all, piping hot—just the way I love it.”
Location/hours: DM for curbside pick up
Being vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out on eating some of your favorite Mexican dishes. Pozole is one of those meals that can be made meat-free and packed with a flavorful and rich broth. And that’s what you will find at El Cocinero Restaurant: a bowl full of vegan pozole rojo made with jackfruit cooked just right, leaving you with tender strips of what might as well be chicken.
Location: 6265 Sepulveda Blvd. #12. Los Angeles, 91411
Hours: Mon closed; Tuesday - Sunday 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Across the street from El Mariachi Plaza stands Un Solo Sol Kitchen. Its Latin-American menu (there are also Asian and Middle Eastern influences here) features plenty of meaty recipes, but the vegan options are about as vast. One of the best items has to be its veggie tacos. But as the weather gets cooler, the vegan pozole, be it the red or green one, rises to the top. Their green pozole is made out of mushrooms; the red with soft pieces of tofu.
Location: 1818 E. 1st St. Los Angeles, 90033
Hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12:00 noon - 8.30 p.m. Closed Tues and Wed
Topline:
A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to more than 3,000 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the budget after several years of spending more money than it brings in.
Why now: Even as California is poised to fund schools at record-high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone.
Who’s being cut: LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts impact less than 1% of the district’s more than 83,000 member workforce.
What's next: The reduction in force vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be-determined number of positions because impacted employees may be moved to other positions.
Read on ... for more details on the vote and its wide-ranging effects.
A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to more than 3,000 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the budget after several years of spending more money than it brings in.
Even as California is poised to fund schools at record-high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone.
For the past two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit. The district projects a deficit of $877 million next school year, about 14% of the 2026-2027 budget.
LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts impact less than 1% of the district’s more than 83,000 member workforce.
The reduction in force vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be-determined number of positions because impacted employees may be moved to other positions. Staff said the board would vote to finalize any un-rescinded layoff notices in May or June.
Topline:
About 15% of California households lack access to high-speed internet, according to the latest report from UC Riverside. Researchers pointed to affordability as one of the biggest barriers to closing the persistent digital divide.
What does the report say? The average monthly cost can range from $70 to $80. And rural communities are even further isolated because of a lack of infrastructure investments from private companies.
Read on … for more on the report’s findings.
About 15% of California households lack access to high-speed internet, according to the latest report from UC Riverside. Researchers pointed to affordability as one of the biggest barriers to closing the persistent digital divide.
Edward Helderop, associate director at UCR’s Center for Geospatial Sciences and report author, told LAist that the findings weren't surprising.
“A lot of American households and California households don't have high-speed internet available at home,” Helderop said. “It's sort of just an unfortunate reality that that's the case for the state of California.”
Nearly one in seven households in California doesn’t have reliable internet access, according to the report. The biggest barrier continues to be affordability. Even in urban areas, like Los Angeles, where broadband internet is more widely available, the average monthly cost can range from $70 to $80 per month.
But in rural areas, broadband internet is still widely unavailable because of a lack of infrastructure investments from private companies. Only two-thirds of rural households have broadband access at home.
“This digital divide represents not just a technological failure, but a profound barrier to economic opportunity, educational advancement, and civic participation that undermines California’s potential for shared prosperity,” the report states.
Experts also call for mandatory broadband data transparency — internet providers should be required to publicly disclose their service speeds, pricing, reliability metrics and coverage areas.
“Private telecom companies administering the service, they're under no obligation to maintain publicly available data sets in the same way that you might get with other utilities,” Helderop said. “There are issues with the fact that the advertised speeds don't really match up with the actual speeds that people experience at home.”
Researchers also recommend that broadband providers be regulated as utilities, like water and power, monitoring rates, quality and service obligations.
“When we regulate something like a utility, it comes with a few regulations that we take for granted,” Helderop said. “Something like a universal service obligation, in which the utility … their primary motive is to provide universal service, so to provide the service to every household in California.”
As a public utility, officials could ensure that providers are offering the same type of service to every household in the state, as well as regulate rates.
Norma Fernandez, CEO at Everyone On, said access to affordable, high-speed internet is a basic necessity.
"Still, too many families, particularly those in under-resourced communities, predominantly of color, are still left out,” Fernandez said. “Expanding reliable connectivity means addressing affordability, investing in community-centered solutions, and ensuring that digital access is part of every policy conversation."
Digital equity advocates say they see the need from local families every day, but available data doesn’t reflect that.
“On the maps, families appear to live in ‘connected’ neighborhoods, but in reality, they still can’t afford to get online because the monopoly provider’s plans are unaffordable,” Natalie Gonzalez, director at Digital Equity Los Angeles. “The provider-reported broadband maps don’t match what residents experience on the ground, and that gap has real consequences.”
In L.A., for example, hundreds of thousands of households lack reliable internet, but only a fraction qualify for public funding because available data says they’re already served, Gonzalez added.
“Public investment alone doesn’t guarantee equity if the underlying data is flawed,” Gonzalez said. “When the only data regulators have come from the providers themselves, the providers end up defining reality. Communities are then forced to prove they’re disconnected, without access to the same information the companies use to claim coverage.”
Cristal Mojica, digital equity expert at the Michelson Center for Public Policy, said pricing data is intentionally obscured.
“It makes it harder for people to shop around between internet plans,” Mojica told LAist. “It makes it really challenging for our state legislators to be effective and make effective decisions around affordability when they have to try to dig around for that information themselves.”
California has already invested $6 billion for broadband –called the “Middle-Mile” project –through Senate Bill 156. The 2021 law is the largest state investment in broadband in U.S. history to get more people online.
Helderop explained that broadband investments are typically made possible through grants or loans to private telecom companies, making the state’s investment critical.
“It's the first time that any state, or any government in the United States, is taking it upon themselves to build and then own the infrastructure at the end of it,” Helderop said. “I would say that's probably the primary reason that we don't have universal broadband available to households in the United States right now.”
When completed, the “Middle-Mile” project will open markets to new providers and reduce monopolies, Helderop added.
Topline:
Teamsters Local 2010, which represents trades workers across the Cal State University system, will be on strike through Friday. The union also filed an unfair labor practice charge against the CSU, claiming that the system has refused to honor contractually obligated raises and step increases for its members.
The backstory: According to Teamsters Local 2010, union members won back salary steps in 2024 “after nearly three decades of stagnation.” That year, the union was on the verge of striking alongside the system's faculty, but it reached a last-minute deal with the CSU.
Why it matters: The union represents 1,100 plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, locksmiths and other building maintenance staff. In December 2025, some 94% of workers voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike. In a press statement, the union said that “any disruptions to campus operations will be a direct result of CSU’s refusal to pay.”
What the CSU says: In a press statement, the CSU maintains that conditions described in its collective bargaining agreement with the union — which “tied certain salary increases to the receipt of new, unallocated, ongoing state budget funding”— were not met. The system also said it "values its employees and remains committed to fair, competitive pay and benefits for our skilled trades workforce.”
Go deeper: Trades worker union says CSU backtracked on contract, authorizes strike
Topline:
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, is raising the alarm over her late husband’s foundation collecting about 3,000 of his personal scrapbooks and his diary, which she says contain thousands of nude images of women, some of whom might have been minors at the time the photos were taken.
Why it matters: In a press conference Tuesday, Hefner said in addition to her concerns about some of the women in the scrapbooks being minors, she's worried that the women and possibly girls in the images didn't agree to their images being kept and about what might happen to the women if the images were made public or posted online.
What's next: Hefner said she was told that the scrapbooks may be in a storage facility in California. Her attorney, Gloria Allred, says they were informed that the foundation plans to digitize them, but it’s unclear what it plans to do with them.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, is raising the alarm over her late husband’s foundation collecting about 3,000 of his personal scrapbooks and his diary, which she says contain thousands of nude images of women, some of whom might have been minors at the time the photos were taken.
In a press conference Tuesday, Hefner and her attorney, Gloria Allred, announced they’ve filed regulatory complaints with California and Illinois attorneys general, asking them to investigate the foundation’s handling of the scrapbooks. The complaints were filed to both attorneys general because the foundation is registered to do business in California but incorporated in Illinois.
“I believe they include women and possibly girls who never agreed to lifelong possession of their naked images and who have no transparency into where their photos are, how they’re being stored or what will happen to them next,” Hefner said.
She added the diary includes names of women he slept with, notes of sexual acts and other explicit details.
Hefner said she was asked to resign from her position as CEO and president of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation on Monday after raising concerns about the materials. She said after she declined to resign, she was removed from her role.
She said she was told the scrapbooks may be in a storage facility in California. Allred says they were informed that the foundation plans to digitize them, but it’s unclear what it plans to do with them.
“This is not archival preservation. This is not history. This is control. I am deeply worried about these images getting out,” Hefner said. “Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces and data breaches means that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives.”
In addition to asking for an investigation into the foundation’s handling of the materials, it also asks the attorneys general to take appropriate actions to secure those images.
LAist has reached out to the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation for comment.
