Just off the Beach Boulevard exit of the 22 Freeway in Westminster, you’ll find a Walmart Supercenter. Make your way through the busy parking lot, and you’ll spot a retired school bus parked near the entrance, painted in psychedelic purples and blues. This isPlaya Baby, and they’re quietly making some of the most interesting tacos in Orange County right now.
A name with two meanings
The name Playa Baby holds double significance for husband-and-wife team Amanda Rios and Red Feather — two people who came to this parking lot from very different places.
The two got married in 2022 at Burning Man, on a dried lakebed known as the playa. And in Spanish, playa means beach — a nod to the region Red Feather’s family is from in Nayarit, a state in west-central Mexico next to the Pacific. The state itself takes its name from Red Feather’s people, the Naayeri.
Combined cultures
Red Feather grew up in the mountains of Nayarit with his grandmother after losing both his father and grandfather in a car accident. His mother, known as Chicha, had already immigrated to California and was working to send for her children. He lived in an indigenous community largely untouched by colonization — matriarchal and connected to the land. When Chicha finally sent for him, the family settled in Santa Ana, where he grew up working alongside her, selling tamales and other food from small shops — and learning to cook in the process. He eventually went to art school, became an industrial designer, and found it so unsatisfying that he walked away, instead launching a fish taco truck in 2020 under the name School Fish Taco.
Amanda is originally from Bayan, Georgia, a small town she describes as “an hour from anything” — the kind of place where food isn’t casual, it’s communal, and you cook for everyone who comes through the door. She dropped out of the University of Georgia to start a small catering operation from her apartment, then enrolled at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte before working her way through kitchens across the South. In 2016, she moved to California and eventually became a private chef, including cooking alongside Chef Nikki Stewart on Dave Chappelle’s team — events like his 50th birthday, Summer Camp, and the Blue Note Jazz Fest in Napa.
It was during that time she crossed paths with Red Feather. She came on as a consultant to his food truck business — and never left…