Today is “A Day Without Immigrants,” a national strike urging immigrants and their allies to stay home and that has spread via social media. It’s gained the most national coverage through celebrity chef José Andres, currently involved in a lawsuit against Donald Trump. The Weekly knows of a couple of OC restaurants that are participating, although they declined any coverage for fear of getting targeted by losers. But one restaurant who is publicly participating in “A Day Without Immigrants” is Taco Maria, whose head chef Carlos Salgado just got another James Beard Award semifinalist honor for Best Chef in the West (congrats!), and who was the guest on this week’s OC Speakly podcast.
Taco Maria sent over the following statement:
In solidarity with the masses organizing the Day Without Immigrants, and on behalf of our families, friends, mentors, and colleagues who are immigrants, Taco María will be donating 100 percent of our profits on February 16 to the ACLU of Southern California.
Moving forward, the restaurant will continue donating one percent of all profits to nonprofit organizations that fight for social justice and protect civil rights on the local and national level.
COOL…as if you needed another reason to eat at Taco Maria, now know they’re down AF!
If you’re an OC restaurant who’s participating today, email me at garellano at ocweekly dot com, por favor. Oh, and #fucktrump
UPDATE, 9:53 A.M.: Burritos La Palma owner Albert Bañuelos wrote in with the following: “We closed El Monte today. My team asked if we could. We said Hell yeah.” BOOM #respect
