For The Love Of Her Country: An Ecuadorian Street Food Pop-Up Is Born In LA

It’s a busy, hot Thursday morning when Denisse Sandoval and her daughters start to offload equipment from their van on Nordhoff Street, near Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.

They set up their blue tent that displays the name of their business, “Las Guayacas, Qué Chevere,” which comes from the nickname for residents of Guayaquil, the coastal city, and “Chévere" because it's Guayaco slang for “cool.” A collage of photos shows Ecuador’s various regions. For Sandoval, the love for her country runs deep, and she feels the need for it to be known.

Drivers in their cars slow down on the busy street, eager to find out what food is being grilled and sold, catching a whiff of steak that would be featured on the arroz de menestra. Arms outstretched from car windows hold out phones to take pictures of their signage and phone number.

It’s a small community in L.A. — 40,000 Ecuadorians call Los Angeles home, based on census data estimates, and Ecuadorian food outlets are few and far between. But Sandoval's following has grown amongst those who miss the food of their homeland and others who are intrigued by the cuisine. Her pop-up has been operating since April, with Sandoval sharing her daily menus on social media.

Sandoval’s daughter created the social media posts for Facebook and Instagram to announce an extensive seafood menu that includes various ceviches: de concha, camarón, mixto and other dishes like cazuela, tortillas de verde and the Súper Bolon.

Food as life

Denisse Sandoval grew up with her grandparents in Ecuador while her mom studied to be a social worker in Los Angeles. At 13-years-old, she immigrated to the United States and went on to attend Burbank High School, but she always wanted to go back to her mother country.

“I met a guy from Ecuador and always said ‘I loved Ecuador,’ ” Sandoval said. “So I went back and I got married very young.”

That young marriage didn’t last long, but Sandoval saw that she and her two daughters needed to return to Los Angeles and stay for good. She soon met another Ecuadorian in Los Angeles, a man from Cuenca. One day at their Northridge home, she noticed her mother-in-law cooking and was interested in learning how to make Ecuadorian cuisine to sell. But her husband was not keen on the idea.

“He tells me, ‘You don’t have to do anything — you don’t need to work,’ ” Sandoval says, explaining the traditional Ecuadorian male point of view. “I said, ‘I can — I want to learn how to.’ ”

Before opening to sell food, Denisse and her friend Andrea Contreras make sure that the Las Guayacas, Que Chevere brand seal is on all types of food containers for the day’s menu.

(

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli

/

For LAist

)

Sandoval learned some cooking techniques with a Mexican tamalera, discovering how to make tamales and other Mexican food. Learning the cuisine from another country gave her the confidence to understand the basics of food and how to sell it. Soon she started to sell Mexican food out of her house, where customers would order plates in advance.

She decided to expand the menu by adding seco de pollo, an Ecuadorian dish of chicken slowly stewed in beer with yellow seasoned rice and fried plantains. She made it in the Salvadoran style, however, so she could market it to Central Americans. She figured there wasn’t much of an Ecuadorian community in L.A.

“I swore there weren’t that many Ecuadorians out here besides my friends and family,” Sandoval said. But soon she began to see an influx of Ecuadorians asking about her food — and connecting her with others from the country.

“One of them showed me the page 'SoCal (Ecuadorians),’ and I started to publish on the page.”

The power of social media

The Facebook group “SoCal Ecuadorians” has a membership of about 6,800. It’s up to the members of the page to post about the latest Ecua-owned business to support, where to buy Ecua-made products, or what’s the latest news back home.

Sandoval started to post that she was ready to take plate orders from hungry customers, reaching out for advice from others who'd already been successful with Ecuadorian cuisine.

Denisse Sandoval proudly claims that she’s opened up the first “Agachadito” — or an Ecuadorian street food business — in Los Angeles.

(

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli

/

For LAist

)

“I worked with several people who worked in food and they guided me,” Sandoval said. “Diana Rojas was one of the first to tell me where it's cheaper to buy ingredients.”

Diana Rojas is the business owner of Manjares de Mi Tierra, a mobile Ecuadorian restaurant that opened in Elysian Park in 2021 and continues to operate as a catering business.

Rojas built a loyal following. When her husband bought a home in Palmdale, she expected that clients weren't going to drive up north due to the distance. But to her surprise, many still made the journey to pick up their order.

Adapting to American palates

There were other, smaller Ecuadorian restaurant Facebook pages, so to stand out, Sanodval created her “Súper Bolon."

A bolon is usually mashed plantains rolled into a small ball, stuffed with cheese, and then fried.

Sandoval said, “With the ‘Súper Bolon,’ I fill it up with fritada (fried pork) and cheese, and people like it.”

Ecuadorians in Los Angeles might recognize one of these iconic soda cans: It’s the Tropical, a strawberry-flavored cola. It’s uncommon to find these colas in the soda aisle at a local supermarket due to high export fees.

(

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli

/

For LAist

)

Ecuadorians in L.A. who want to try Sandoval’s food should know that she sells her food at a higher price point. (One plate, which includes carne asada, chorizo, shrimp, rice and potatoes costs about $20).

Due to expensive export tariffs and Ecuadorian products not being mass-produced, it’s hard for Sandoval to get consistent ingredients from the country. Her uncle travels there every three months to get essential spices like the Aji Peruano, a chili pepper that is needed for the seco de pollo dish.

For people from other nationalities tasting the food for the first time, she changes traditional dishes with new sauces or adds something extra, like a chimichurri sauce with cheese. The approach works for people like Silvana Cucuta, an Ecuadorian woman from Santo Domingo who now lives in Walnut. She drove out about an hour into the San Fernando Valley so her 20-year-old son, Joseph — who has a Puerto Rican father — could try Ecuadorian food for the first time.

“I never go to Ecuadorian places without my mom,” Joseph Cucuta said. “I had only two places, this one, and another one that was 30 minutes away from Temple City.”

He was referring to the now-closed El Caserio Restaurant in Silver Lake, an Ecuadorian establishment that also served Italian food to make ends meet for 40 years. Their last day of business was Dec. 31, 2021, with the executive chef and owner, William Velasco, retiring.

The reality of operating a restaurant

The next logical step in the life of pop-ups is to expand into a restaurant. But with high rent, inflation kicking up food prices, and the cost of labor, it currently doesn’t make much sense to Sandoval.

Carmen Platón, the owner of El Cancun Ole restaurant in East Los Angeles, has been selling Ecuadorian food since the 1980s and is one of the OG Ecuadorian entrepreneurs.

Her restaurant is in the process of being converted into an event space because the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic effectively closed off her business.

Various clients came on a Thursday afternoon to dine at Las Guayacas, Que Chevere.

(

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli

/

For LAist

)

Platón resorted to converting her house into La Casita de Cancún Ole, where she could sell Ecuadorian lunches on Sunday.

“That's the advice that I told to the Guayaca (Sandoval), don’t look for a place,” Platón said. “You’re going to pay rent and you’re going to realize all the money will be going to paying rent.”

In fact, many are staying with the order-by-plate model. On the SoCal Ecuadorians Facebook page, there are probably more than 15 different Ecuadorians offering the service. To be able to break into the L.A. food ecosystem without going into debt, restaurateurs are turning to this model to sell food. Selling from home or as a pop-up as Sandoval does, they still have to comply with food safety permits.

“Everyone is selling from their homes, and I know that they are doing well,” said Platón. “Blessings to all these people who are also making that effort for tomorrow; maybe they can start their business like I did.”

By 3 p.m., Sandoval and her family are almost done selling food. Then they organize themselves — and prepare social media posts to advertise the weekend's menu.