Los Angeles is full of historic restaurants, and one of the most notable is El Cholo, located in the Harvard Heights neighborhood, west of downtown and south of Koreatown. It’s considered to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in the city, continuously in business since 1923 all within the same family — the founders’ grandson runs it to this day. (The restaurant also claims to be the city’s first Mexican eatery, although this is hard to prove and other sources don’t make this claim.)
El Cholo started out as Sonora Café, named for founders Alejandro and Rosa Bosquez’s home state in Mexico, and its current name came a couple of years after opening. The original location was near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and it moved into its current (much bigger) location in 1931. Early offerings included classic Mexican dishes like enchiladas, tamales, chiles rellenos, and beans and rice, helping introduce many Angelenos to Mexican cuisine during the early 20th century. One notable dish was the restaurant’s Sonoran enchiladas, which feature thick fried tortillas swimming in a robust red sauce of guajillo chiles and tomato. Although the menu has evolved over time, the restaurant still serves long-time favorites like green corn tamales.
Part of that evolution involved the restaurant leaning more into some Americanized tastes, with some dishes being served less spicy than they would be traditionally. Tex-Mex also crept into the menu, for example, in 1959, when waitress Carmen Rocha began serving nachos, which were based on a recipe she knew from San Antonio.
El Cholo nowadays
Whether it’s nostalgia or the hearty Mexican-American comfort food that keeps people coming back to El Cholo is hard to say, but in any case, the restaurant seems to have no problem filling seats, as it’s reportedly typically busy…