When I visited Taqueria Hoy in Orange, owner Rafael De Anda couldn’t wait to get home to watch Mexico kick off its World Cup stint. After decades at the helm of his taco shop — he first started it as a food truck and now has brick-and-mortar locations in Orange, Santa Ana and Anaheim — he could put his feet up and relax. The business was in good hands.
His sons, Raphael V. De Anda, 34, and Christian De Anda, 30, had been working at the taqueria since childhood. But when Rafael De Anda was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2011 and battling the disease, the young men took over the complete running of the business — with their father still an integral part.
While I get a lot of emails pitching stories for LAist, rarely does a story materialize from one of them. But when Raphael De Anda emailed me about Taqueria Hoy, including a video that captured the warmth of his and his brother’s relationship with their father, it quickly piqued my interest…