The Burritos Feeding the Relief Efforts During the Los Angeles Wildfires

Since the Los Angeles wildfires broke out in early January, many restaurants and chefs have stepped up on behalf of their neighbors in need. For one such restaurant, the journey has been a surprising one of culinary creativity and community engagement. And all from the desire to share the beauty and comfort of a burrito. 

That restaurant is Café Tropical, a casual daytime café in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood—an area that remained unthreatened by the January fires. After serving customers from morning through mid-afternoon, the café now keeps the lights on into the night as an organizing center for volunteers who arrive to make and distribute meals across the city. And at the center of the effort is a breakfast burrito.

The owners of Café Tropical—Ed Cornell, Danny Khorunzhiy, and Rene Navarette—are not working alone, but with the direction and assistance of Feed the Streets, a community-based non-profit organization that coordinates food donations used to prepare meals, including sandwiches, veggie and vegan wraps, and of course, burritos. 

The burrito that’s become part of the recovery effort is a simplified version of one that Cornell serves on his menu. Eggs are scrambled with cheese, salt, and pepper, and folded into a tortilla with a crispy hash brown patty and bacon.

Get the Recipe: Café Tropical Burrito

Feeding Los Angeles in an Emergency

Part of the beauty of Café Tropical’s burrito is that while it’s hearty and heart-warming, it’s also easy to make, doesn’t require utensils to eat, and can be refrigerated and reheated easily–qualities it shares with other foods like wraps and sandwiches.  “You’re just trying to get something good to as many people as possible,” Cornell says. 

So far, volunteers at Café Tropical have made more than 3,000 burritos, which largely fed firefighters on the front lines in the Palisades and are now being prepared and distributed to evacuees.

 “We’ve actually been able to reach some of the families [in Pasadena] that have been directly affected and are evacuated or have lost their homes and are staying in hotels and shelters,” says Esmé Edwards, the executive director of Feed the Streets, whose team has robust connections with many LA communities.

“I think that a big part of the work that we do is to acknowledge and create relationships with communities, the way we’ve created relationships between volunteers, created friendships, the way we’ve kind of been able to connect through this tragedy,” Edwards says.

While Cornell manages his kitchen, Feed the Streets receives and distributes donated meals from L.A. spots including Night + Market, Jon and Vinny’s, and LaSorted’s. Cases of eggs that fuel Café Tropical’s burritos come from Little Fish Echo Park; Courtney Storer, a culinary producer on FX’s The Bear, brought over meals for distribution, along with El Coyote, Genghis Cohen, and many more. 

“It’s been really beautiful to see the Los Angeles restaurant community all come together,” says Café Tropical co-owner Danny Khorunzhiy. “Chef Diego Argoti from Poltergeist, he was in the kitchen with us for a few days. We’ve had people come from all over.”

Little Restaurant, Big Impact

Once word got out that Feed the Streets was accepting food donations and the efforts of volunteers on certain nights at Café Tropical, the establishment became much more than a restaurant.

At the peak of the wildfire response, 50 to 100 volunteers (including restaurant staff and regulars) showed up each day to drop off food, help cook, or deliver meals. Some are just finding their footing in the city, while others are LA natives.

“LA is my home,” says Khorunzhiy, who serves on the board of Feed the Streets. “Through everything that we’ve been through, I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a collective destruction as we’re seeing in these fires. And to see everybody band together, to see how much Angelenos care about other Angelenos is a really beautiful thing, and it makes me proud to be an Angeleno.”

One volunteer showed up with 400 burritos, which she and her friends made with ingredients donated from a local restaurant. Others came with fruit, ready-made foods, or hands to help. One individual who lost their home to the fires was out at 8:00 a.m. delivering burritos to firefighters. Another, a restaurant owner himself, lost his pizzeria to the Eaton Fire; despite that specific loss, some staff showed up at Café Tropical wanting to help others.  

As much as the food for a restaurant is important, it’s about the third place you create, Cornell says. “When we bought this place, it already had a life of its own as a third place here in Los Angeles. It sounds horrible for me to say, as the chef, that the side goal was the food. But even though that is my exact job, all of that just serves to keep this place open.” 

And when tragedy looms, that sense of community expands right out to the city limits–and beyond. One burrito at a time.

How You Can Help

Feed the Streets has been active since the fires first started, and the organization plans to help evacuees from Altadena and the Palisades with breakfast and dinner, as well as hygiene products and non-perishables, for 60 to 90 more days. To support the work of Feed the Streets,you can visit their website and donate directly.