Homeboy Industries Has One of L.A.’s Newest Gourmet Food Trucks

By Jamilah King Sep 18, 2014

Homeboy Industries, the Los Angeles-based organization that helps formerly gang-involved and incarcerated Angelenos start new lives, has one of the area’s newest food gourmet trucks. The truck offers food such as salsa and granola that are produced by Homeboy Industries’ entrepreneurial arm, but their focus is chilaquiles.

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"We didn’t want to be just another taco truck, so, we thought, since our chilaquiles are what Homegirl Cafe is well known for, we’d do a twist on it," truck manager and head chef Stephen Barkulis told Los Angeles magazine.

The truck offers new including Tingaquiles with shredded skirt steak slow cooked in chipotle chile, Molequiles with red mole chicken and habeñero pickled onions. For the vegetarians there’s no-meat Veggiequiles. Check out the menu.

Chef Barkulis and his three-woman crew are all graduates of the Homegirl Industries’ 18-month training program. He sums up the truck’s purpose this way: "We really want to get out there and further our cause," Barkulis told Los Angeles magazine."Because at the heart of all that we’re doing is that we want to change lives."

Homeboy Industries began as a youth program started in 1992 by Father Greg Boyle. In addition to offering formerly incarcerated folks legal assistance, counseling, tattoo removal and work-readiness training, the program has since grown to businesses that include a bakery, cafe, merchandise and a farmer’s market. 

(h/t Los Angeles Magazine)