How Taqueria Hoy became an Orange County taco institution

Before tacos spawned $17 brunchtime objets d’art and before Orange County’s dining scene started receiving some of the breathless national attention usually reserved for Los Angeles and San Francisco, Rafael De Anda was making and selling tacos from a truck in Santa Ana.

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Sitting inside Taqueria Hoy’s Orange location on a spring morning, De Anda, better known to family and regulars as Don Rafa and his sons, Raphael and Christian, talked about their 24-hour restaurants the way people talk about a family member, with affection, exasperation and pride.

Back in the early 1980s, Orange County’s taco scene, as De Anda recalls it, was often relegated to bar windows, downtown streets and the kind of late-night spots where the food came with a side of beer-soaked chaos. If you wanted what he considered a proper taco, you usually had to drive to Los Angeles or San Diego.

So De Anda created something else, a taco shop that honored the food he knew from Arandas, Jalisco, while making room for families, workers, kids, night owls and anyone in need of a fast, hot meal. No alcohol. No fuss. No trend-chasing. He simply made tacos and salsas and that, over time, turned a restaurant into a regional treasure.

“When I first started, my mind thought about opening a taco place for families,” said De Anda. “Because the taco is very popular for us. It’s our fast food.”

That idea became Taqueria Hoy (originally christened Taqueria De Anda, the ones owned by Rafael De Anda were later rebranded in 2020), the Orange County taqueria founded in 1980 and now operated by De Anda and his sons. The restaurant brand, which has three spots found in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Orange, as well as roaming taco trucks and carts, turns 46 this year. And while plenty has changed since Don Rafa parked that early truck near a billiard hall in Santa Ana, they insist the important components have not.

The menu remains anchored by the meats Don Rafa started with, including al pastor, carnitas, cabeza and lengua. In the early days he also served sesos, or beef brains, a prized cut in the taco-stand culture he grew up with in Jalisco. These were not tacos reverse-engineered for a white-tablecloth audience or softened for white palates. They were foods of his home, translated into Orange County without surrendering their authenticity.

“We come from taco stands in Mexico,” he said. “We do it the same way.”

For him, tacos are not precious, but necessary. They’re quick, affordable and sustaining. They are, he joked, the Mexican equivalent of a burger. “The tacos for my community, they’re like hamburgers,” he said, with a laugh. “If you’re looking for something fast, grab a hamburger. So, we are like the In-N-Out but for tacos.”

That ethos hones in at the heart of Taqueria Hoy’s appeal. It’s not trying to be rarified, but reliable. “At any taqueria, the salsas have to be the star,” said Raphael. “We take pride in our salsas.” Here the red has a bite, the green is fresh and the new avocado salsa soothes.

Raphael said his father’s al pastor and salsas remain the clearest expression of Don Rafa’s story. These recipes are still made in-house, guarded closely and handled by the family.

“Our al pastor was his recipe from the beginning,” Raphael said. “All of our salsas still to this day are from his recipes.”

Those recipes helped create a loyal following, especially among Orange County’s Mexican, Mexican American and Latino communities. Customers who first came in as young adults now return with their children and grandchildren. Don Rafa calls them “grandson customers,” which describes something pretty profound — namely, a restaurant surviving long enough to feed three generations.

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Such longevity, of course, requires some sacrifice. Raphael remembers a father who worked punishing hours, something 24 to 28 hours at a time. The boys grew up inside the business, first as children tagging along with pop, then as workers cleaning tables, standing at registers and learning what it meant to keep the place moving. Christian describes Taqueria Hoy as his only job.

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“I’ve only ever had one boss,” he said, with a smile, nodding to his pop.

The brothers, both Chapman University graduates, now help steer the company into its next chapter. They have modernized operations, expanded catering, pursued partnerships with outfits like the Orange County Soccer Club and the Anaheim Ducks, as well as serving tacos at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and found ways to introduce the brand to an audience without turning it into something unrecognizable.

That balance, according to Christian, is the tricky part. “Our main focus first and foremost is to keep traditional to what my father created,” he said. “Be traditional with our flavors and our product.”

New items, which won’t be new to anyone who has stepped foot inside one of California’s many taquerias, include new meats like chicken and chorizo, flour tortillas in addition to corn ones and, of course, burritos.

The restaurant’s 24-hour service is another staple of its identity. In a county where, frustratingly, true late-night dining options continue to dwindle. Taqueria Hoy remains a refuge for factory workers, restaurant crews, tipsy clubbers, cops, families, insomniacs and others hungry in between. Raphael remarked that the late-night crowd often includes other restaurant workers and taco-shop owners who come in after closing their own spots. High praise, indeed.

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The family also has plans for growth. They hope to open a new space in Tustin within the year, and the family’s tequila brand, 4 Copas, billed as “the world’s first organic tequila,” has been going strong for years.

The family also keeps restaurants open on holidays. Christian explains the reasoning, saying that many employees come from Mexico and have left family behind. Working Christmas or New Year’s can mean being with colleagues in lieu of being alone, while also earning money.

That also explains why Taqueria Hoy feels larger than its menu. It’s a business, yes, but also a landing place. For immigrants. For workers. For regulars. (During this interview, a handful of curious regulars came over to say hi and see what’s up.) For sons who grew up behind the counter. For a founder who arrived in Orange County in 1975 thinking he might return to Mexico in a year or two, only to build a life in the 714.

When asked what makes him proud after all these years, Don Rafa pointed to the restaurants and his sons sitting by his side. “The restaurant has given us who we are,” he said. “It’s like we don’t own the restaurant. The restaurant owns us.”

Refreshingly, that might be the most honest thing anyone can say about a family eatery that has lasted this long. In addition to being one of the region’s more popular taco spots, Taqueria Hoy is proof that the foodways immigrants carry with them can become part of a count’s civic fabric and blood identity, even in a place too often flattened into beaches, gated communities and reality-TV memes.

“And in a dining era obsessed with novelty, Don Rafa’s great contribution might be something far less flashy yet vastly more crucial: keeping the taco simple, fast, affordable and close to its source.

Or, as he put it, “You do it, you start working because you have a need to work. And then automatically you start to create something that you never expected to create.”

Find it: 1019 N. Magnolia Ave., Anaheim; 291 N. Tustin St., Orange; 1029 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana

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