The Brief

There are food names in Los Angeles that thrill the soul. Canter’s. Pink’s hot dogs. Roma Market. They’re all known for quality, tasty food. But if you look closer, there’s a common theme — they all get their meat from the same supplier: RC Provisions.

Which probably should be as well known as the other marquee names.

It seems like everyone in Los Angeles uses it. Old-school Jewish delis like Factors, Canters and Langers. New-school Jewish delis like Wexler’s and Belle’s.

That world-famous chili used by Original Tommy’s, Pink’s Hot Dogs and Dodger Dogs? The capocollo served at Italian delis like Bay Cities and Roma Market?

Pink's Classic Chili Dog — chili courtesy of RC Provisions

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Courtesy Pink's

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Yup. RC Provisions.

It all comes from a 25,000-square-foot facility on Victory Boulevard, right off the Burbank exit of the 5 Freeway. The company just bought the building on the corner, which will add 2,500 square feet. It’s such a large operation that the federal government requires they have a USDA office on site.

RC Provisions "our best in the west" pastrami

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Josh Heller

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Owner Matt Giamela says, “We’re extremely honored and privileged to be a part of such a large organization of great establishments.”

Missing Italian subs

Matt Giamela’s grandparents left Plainfield, N.J., for Southern California in the early '50s because they "heard the weather was so beautiful out here.” They moved to Olive Avenue and Beachwood Drive in Burbank, where there already was a small enclave of Italian Americans.

His dad, Bill Giamela, “loved the submarine sandwiches back home as a kid, growing up in an Italian American family,” Matt Giamela said. “You eat pasta on Sundays and you eat Italian sandwiches a couple of times a week. So there’s delis all over New Jersey. He missed those Italian-style sandwiches.”

The only spot he could get his fix was at Santoro’s Submarine Sandwiches, which has been open on Burbank Boulevard since 1956.

So at about 20 years old, Bill Giamela opened his own shop on Riverside Drive in 1964.

“He got an old O’Keefe and Merritt stove that he bought at a flea market,” Matt Giamela said.

Bill Giamela eventually grew Giamela’s into a regional sub sandwich empire with nine stores.

Giamela’s sold Italian cold-cut classics, pepper steaks and their famous meatballs. Matt Giamela says, “My grandma would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and make the meatballs at the house on Beachwood, and then would take the bus to the Riverside Drive location and help my dad make the sandwiches.”

These days, there are three locations left, but Matt Giamela says they’ve recently expanded the dining room at Giamela’s in Atwater Village to allow more people to dine in and host events and dinner parties.

Italian dishes were the family’s natural calling. However, pastrami, of Eastern European origin, was less familiar. The Giamelas didn’t always know what to do with it. Matt Giamela says, “My dad used to serve pastrami cold. He didn’t know any better. He’d just put the cold meat directly on the slicer.”

But that would soon change.

“Being an Italian-American hustler, [he] wanted to go straight to the source — so he came here to RC Provisions,” Matt Giamela said.

The business originally was founded in 1958 by Alex Russak and Lou Cholodenko, who lent their last initials to the brand name. By 1966, the business had been sold to Ron Fisher, who became Bill Giamela’s friend.

“They developed a relationship over the decades, and then in 2000, Ron wanted to retire, so he sold it to my father, and we’ve been running it ever since,” Matt Giamela said.

A slice of pastrami heaven

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Josh Heller

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Best pastrami of my life

Today, the RC Provisions team makes sure it can serve the exact specifications that each restaurant is looking for. (If you sell over 500 pounds per week, RC will make your own white label custom blend, like they do for the big boys Langer’s, Canter’s or Brent’s.)

The specific flavor is determined by the amount of time the meat spends being brined — it can take four to five days — and smoked and how it’s cut and prepared by the end user.

In the pastrami category alone, RC Provisions sells a range of styles: navel pastrami, New York pastrami, brisket pastrami, pepper beef pastrami, eye of the round and pastrami pepper beef flats.

And nothing goes to waste — all the trim goes into making that world famous chili.

When I visited the factory, I got a chance to try one of the newer recipes: Wagyu pastrami, with meat sourced from Brandt Beef in Brawley. It had been heating up in a makeshift steamer for a few hours, so that the fat marbling in this fine cut of meat could become undeniably buttery.

Matt Giamela — who’s been making professional sandwiches since he was 12 years old — toasted the rye bread, loaded it with the meat and added some Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, which came from a deli account they’ve been trying to lock in.

It was no doubt the best pastrami I’ve ever had in my life.

On my way out the door, Giamela offered me a 2-pound hunk of meat.

When I got home, I called my great buddy Mike, whom I’ve known since Hebrew school but who hasn’t been able to hang out for months because he’s been too busy with Law School. Within a moment's notice, he said he was coming over and bringing a corn rye loaf from Bea’s Bakery. This future lawyer has a lot of notes about a lot of things, but this was also the best pastrami he’s ever had.

My mom happened to be at the house, and she doesn’t eat red meat unless she’s on vacation in Europe. But she tasted this and loved it so much she wanted to bring home some meat for my dad. Later, he literally broke his veganness to give this a try, which he absolutely loved.

So when a friend from out of town marvels at the pastrami at Langer's — you can hold the secret to your chest — or you can spill. Up to you.

In a cozy dance studio in Garden Grove, dancers of all experience levels, ages and backgrounds flock to Queer Latin Dance OC to learn the steps to salsa, cumbia and bachata.

For many, the dance class is more than educational — it’s a place to get away from it all, to find community and to uplift one another through art.

When Rodrigo Marquez founded Queer Latin Dance OC at the beginning of this year, he said he was filling a gap in Orange County that often lacks safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community.

“I wanted to make creative communities for us to learn in a safe environment,” Marquez said. “Everyone's here to learn, and I want the pressure of whatever's going on in the world, just to forget for the next hour.”

Queer Latin Dance OC meets three times a week to learn the steps to salsa, cumbia and bachata.

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What are the dance lessons like? 

When creating his teaching plan, Marquez said he considers the range of experience his students might have. Everybody starts somewhere, he added, and the hardest part is showing up.

“It is scary, but if you're already showing up, then just jump in and just forget about the world. It's a great distraction, and dancing makes you feel better,” Marquez said.

Philip Lee, an elementary school teacher from Tustin, took his first class with the group Monday night, trying the quick steps of salsa.

“I had a stressful day. … All my stress that I had in my neck and upper back just kind of went away,” Lee said, adding that the high energy in the room is infectious. “It was nice just laughing with people in the community and meeting new people.”

Lee said the dance lesson gave him a space to be with community.

“The queer community specifically, and just kind of let my guard down and just be free and laugh and enjoy being me and celebrated for a love for the arts,” Lee said. “That's not a space that is always safe.”

Before taking lessons at Queer Latin Dance OC, Melba Rivera said she came in with zero dance experience.

“You come as you are. No matter what level you're at or how you identify or what your experience is, everybody's here and everybody's learning,” Rivera said. “It's a very encouraging and motivating space.”

Salsa and bachata are social dances, Marquez said, but one thing that makes his class unique to many is that regardless of gender identity, anyone can follow or lead.

Typically, the lead falls to the male dancer, and women follow. Marquez said it was important that no one feels pressured to be one or the other.

“That's why I created this, so people like me can just come and learn, not be expected to be in a gender role based on how they look,” Marquez said. “They want to dance how they feel.”

Why it matters

Taryn Heiner said, especially in Orange County, it’s challenging to find spaces that are queer-friendly and queer-open.

“That's really what makes this space so kind and warm and welcoming,” Heiner said. “We have all that base understanding of respecting one another, no matter who they are, who they love and what they do.”

Growing up in Orange County, not every room you walk into is a safe space, Rivera added.

“So walking into a room like this, where everybody's friendly, everybody's learning, everybody's just here for the same purpose to get better, to support each other, is really important,” Rivera said. “Not just in the class, but [in] the friendships we make outside of the classroom.”

Outside of dance class, Marquez’s students meet up for monthly hikes and other get-togethers. Marquez said it is a privilege and an honor to bring people together through his love for dance.

“I've seen people become friends since January, and I see them practice outside of practice,” Marquez said. “I've always had a dream to do my own dance classes, but to do it in a way where people can connect and just be themselves. It's far greater than that.”

Queer Latin Dance OC offers lessons to dancers of all experience levels and has created a new community hub in Orange County.

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Destiny Torres

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Want to dance? 

Salsa, cumbia and bachata classes are held three nights a week on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Classes are $20 per session, but Marquez also offers a free beginner salsa class every Monday.

You can register for the class of your choice here. Payments are taken in person.

Border Patrol agents have been roving from city to city over the last 15 months, far from their home bases in California and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, engaged in an unprecedented mass deportation campaign.

A collaboration between CalMatters, Evident Media and Bellingcat has tracked these agents, documenting their tactics on the ground and through mountains of video footage, since their first proof-of-concept raid in Bakersfield in January 2025.

Exactly one year later, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, followed weeks later by the killing of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent.

Our investigation shows that beyond those two shootings, immigration agents engaged in a pattern of force and questionable detention, aggressive tactics that courts have said likely violated the Constitution, as they moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and then Chicago and Minneapolis.

In each city, federal courts stepped in to restrain them from violating civil liberties in that jurisdiction. Agents later deployed to another city. The video evidence suggests agents’ tactics became more brazen with each stop.

Under President Donald Trump, immigration agents have operated without typical public accountability. Many agents wear masks. Incident reports are largely hidden from the public.

“We are in a completely uncharted world now with these masked agents,” said John Roth, who served as inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security under Presidents Barack Obama and Trump.

“The first thing that you do when you give an agent a gun and a badge and the authority over American people is to make sure that they follow the Constitution, period,” he said.

In this new film, we focus on the activity of five agents from the US-Mexico border whose identities we’ve been able to confirm.

Watch the documentary

We are not aware of any disciplinary action taken against these agents. DHS did not respond to requests for comment; the individual agents either declined to comment or didn’t respond to calls or emails.

We showed the incidents to Roth and Steve Bunnell, former DHS general counsel. Both have testified before Congress, raising the alarm about what they see as a dismantling of the department’s accountability and credibility. Roth called the incidents “difficult to watch.”

“There are sort of two essential components of DHS and law enforcement generally being effective, and that’s trust and credibility,” Bunnell said. “And they have lost those things to the extent they had them.”