Burrito Bartender
“If you can’t tell, we know food,” says Luis “Fahts” Flores as he pats his hefty stomach. I’m hanging out with the burly 24-year-old in a booth at La Palapita, the Portage Park Mexican restaurant he owns and operates along with his mother. Part of a high-powered Chicago taqueria family, Luis’ relatives also own the Las Asadas chain, De Pasada in Ukrainian Village and another popular set of Mexican restaurants in Wicker Park.
He was born into the business. “You just fall into it,” he says. “It’s pretty much all I know.”
La Palapita opened in 1989, and Luis started working in the restaurant about 10 years later. He says the house specialty is the beef burritos. “We’re known for our steak,” he says. Filled with thick, juicy meat, onions and cilantro and covered in Luis’ jalapeño salsa—made fresh almost every day—the burritos are melt-your-face-off spicy. La Palapita goes through 120 of them during every shift.
While scarfing my burrito on the Wednesday night I visited La Palapita, I cooled my flaming tongue with a big cup of homemade horchata. It was ice cold, and the mixture of cinnamon, rice and milk was perfect. Uber-refreshing and not too sweet.
Luis grew up around his diverse group of customers and calls himself the “burrito bartender” because of his close relationships with them. “We cater to everybody,” he says. Hipsters, yuppies, emo kids, blue-collar, white-collar, no-collar, graff heads and even cops come to eat his food. Hungry Chicagoans can find Luis behind the counter or in his office almost any night of the week, often shooting the breeze with folks buying food.“I’m a dick,” Luis says with a laugh about his frequently sarcastic banter. “I treat them like they’re old friends. They’ve been coming in since I was a kid.”
Despite long hours in the restaurant, Luis still finds time to keep up with his graff past. About a year ago, his graphic artist cousin asked if Luis wanted to learn body art. Luis said yes. Since then, he has apprenticed and worked at Munch Art Ink, which recently shut down while it’s renovated and renamed.“The new name is classified,” Luis jokes, “because we don’t know it yet.”
Luis himself has five tattoos—one on his leg and the others on his arms. He’s also practicing his body painting skills, and sometimes practices on his friends in La Palapita. “I’ve always got a marker on me,” Luis says, although recently, he’s been sticker-slapping more than painting.He’s had to be careful ever since 2003, when his graff and his La Palapita customers crossed paths in a more sinister way.
Luis was driving some friends around and got pulled over by the police for something minor, but he couldn’t find his insurance card. The police searched his car. (“Probable cause is a bitch!” Luis added.) The cops found paint cans and pizza boxes, so they arrested him.Later that night in the station, while Luis was handcuffed to the wall, a bunch of cops from the 16th district came in. Most of them were frequent customers at La Palapita.“Shit! That’s the taco guy!” they yelled, and proceeded to hang out with their prisoner for the rest of the evening.
“I had to lawyer up for that,” Luis says, and unfortunately, he was still sentenced to a year of supervision. And the officers didn’t visit the restaurant for a year afterward.“They were probably afraid I would mess with their food,” he says.
La Palapita is located at 4263 N. Milwaukee Ave. It’s open Monday through Thursday until 1 a.m. and Fridays and Saturdays until 2 a.m. Check La Palapita out on Facebook at “La Palapita Fans” and on Twitter
By Christopher Danzig
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