Chinatown restaurant and competing food truck embroiled in taco turf war
A restaurant owner in Chinatown said he is fed up with a food truck that's deliberately parked in front of his restaurant, taking advantage of his new business.
Danny Rodriguez, the owner of Pablito's World, opened his restaurant on Spring Street just a few weeks ago and serves up everything from tacos to sushi.
"We started as a food truck. So, it's been a lot of work to get to this point," Rodriguez told CBSLA.
Rodriguez claims that since he's opened, a food truck has been deliberately parking right in front of the entrance to his restaurant, arriving most of the time on busy weekend nights when people are leaving a night club upstairs, business he said he was counting on.
A week ago, Rodriguez posted video to social media of him confronting the owner of Woody's Grill taco truck that was parked outside of his restaurant, which serves most of the same kind of food.
"I go, 'Man, it's you? You're here, doing this to me?' So, I go, 'Hey, man, you know the rule of trucks and restaurants, you know, it's not even that, it's ethics,'" he said.
However, Matt Geller, CEO of the So Cal Mobile Food Vendors Association, said there's nothing unethical about a food truck parking outside of a restaurant and that you can't regulate trade.
"We don't stop a Burger King opening up next to a McDonald's and we, in Los Angeles and especially California generally, allow food trucks to park anywhere it is safe," Geller told CBSLA.
Rodriguez said he doesn't have a problem with the taco truck setting up, but he'd prefer if it wasn't at his front door.
"Park across the street, a little bit down ways," he said.
For their part, customers said they see it both ways, but Rodriguez said with rising food costs and an employee shortage, this is not the battle he imagined fighting.
"It'll play out and we'll see who wins," on customer said about the ongoing dispute.
While the owner of the food truck has yet to respond, CBSLA did speak to the owner of the Tree House Rooftop Lounge, which is above Pablito's World.
He said he hired the Woody's Grill food truck to come to the location on busy nights because his kitchen is currently closed and he has to comply with his conditional use permit and must have food available. He added that this weekend is the last weekend the food truck will be in front of Pablito's World, at least under his direction, because his kitchen will be open again.
