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Sky's Gourmet Tacos, a Black soul food taco landmark, to close after 34 years
After 34 years on Pico Boulevard, Barbara "Sky" Burrell is preparing to say goodbye to the restaurant that made her a Mid-City institution.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Topline:
Sky's Gourmet Tacos, the Mid-City mainstay that spent the last 34 years highlighting two of L.A.'s best food traditions, will close its Pico Boulevard restaurant on Aug. 15 and pivot to catering and a ghost kitchen.
Why it matters: Owner Barbara Burrell has spent three decades building Sky's into a paragon of Black ownership on a stretch that's lost several other Black-owned institutions in recent years, including Roscoe's House of Chicken 'N Waffles' Pico location in 2023 and My 2 Cents last summer. Burrell cited rising rent and utility costs, diminished foot traffic and competition from ghost kitchens, per reporting from the L.A. Times and Eater L.A.
Food writer Bill Esparza called Sky's "the pinnacle of the Black taco in Los Angeles." He told LAist the lasting influence of Sky's, which helped define a genre, will now be felt in a new wave of Black-owned taco vendors and pop-ups.
"It's like we're losing the Caesar's Restaurant of the Black taco scene," he said, comparing it to the Tijuana restaurant credited with inventing the Caesar salad.
Why now: The business will remain family-run, according to Eater L.A., with Burrell's son and daughter-in-law continuing to lead operations as the focus shifts to catering.
The backstory: Burrell opened Sky's in 1992, building her own "Mexican with a splash of soul" approach — tacos dressed with cheese, lettuce and sour cream over seasoned meats — into a defining thread in Black Angeleno food culture. That approach would later be echoed at spots like Worldwide Tacos and Taco Mell.
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Esparza said that type of cuisine represents a connection between Black and Mexican styles of cooking dating back to the Hot Tamale Trail of the Mississippi Delta, where tamale-making took hold in Black Southern communities generations before migrating west. Nearby, Stevie's Creole Cafe and CJ's Cafe remain open, anchoring what's left of Mid-City's Black-owned restaurant row.
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