Carla Macal and Arón Montenegro have spent decades organizing around issues including Indigenous rights and environmental justice. In June, they opened The Peoples’ Café, a hybrid cafe and community space in El Monte serving coffee, food and free meals alongside arts programming and mutual aid.
The concept grew out of Memories of El Monte, a hyperlocal community art space the pair founded in 2021. In 2025, they added a culinary element with a food truck. This summer, they put both concepts together with a new brick-and-mortar location at 10809 Garvey Ave., El Monte, Calif.
Though their work has since moved down the street from where Memories of El Monte originated. Montenegro told The LA Local that the move has not changed the principles that guide their work.
“We follow Zapatista principles of learning, walking with one another [and] proposing, not imposing, ideas,” Carla, who is also a professor, told The LA Local. She prefers to be identified by her first name when discussing her work outside of the academic setting.
The Peoples’ Café serves Zapatista coffee, an organic Arabica grown by Mayan farming cooperatives in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. It also offers house-made syrups, hibiscus teas and dishes inspired by Indigenous foodways, as well as free meals, alongside art programming and mutual aid.
The owners also said they share a resolution to center Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (QTBIPOC) in all of their activities, which the owner said is derived from what they described as Zapatistas‘ non-hierarchical and horizontal approach to organizing.
More than a coffee shop
The Peoples’ Café founders, educators and partners, met in 2013 while campaigning against the development of a Walmart Supercenter in El Monte. A few years later, along with a group of residents, they won an environmental lawsuit to stop the proposed project.
“We did street theater, instead of just passing out flyers and petitions [to raise awareness],” she said.
Carla is part of the GuateMaya diaspora, Guatemalans of Maya descent who left the country during and after its 36-year civil war. Many of them settled in Los Angeles, which is home to the largest Guatemalan community outside Guatemala itself.
“My motherland went through a whole genocide, a 36-year war,” she said. “Becoming conscious about the war and the struggles made me more aware about justice.”
She said learning about her history shaped the community work she does today. That’s why it was important for her that The Peoples’ Café be more than a coffee shop. It’s also the hub for their nonprofit Center for the Arts and Social Action (CASA), which was established this year as its own entity, with programs that operate out of the space.
The owners said they do not operate the cafe primarily for profit. The idea, in part, is that the cafe’s food sales will help generate direct revenue to preserve a space for mutual aid and cultural programming.
“Our goal is hopefully in five years to become a cooperative.” For now, they run food distributions on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at a nearby location, host clothing swaps at the cafe, and offer free meals for children 12 and younger every Wednesday through Friday, from noon to 5 p.m.
“We feel that food is a basic right for people — it shouldn’t be a commodity,” Montenegro said.
El Monte’s origins
Inside the cafe, a framed display of community agreements and principles of solidarity hangs on a wall. “Revolutions begin in the kitchen,” the sign states.
There are also messages of commitment to Indigenous sovereignty like this one: “All visitors and displaced people in this land, we must be accomplices to Indigenous struggles and defer to the guidance of the original tenders/caretakers of Houtngna, or so-called El Monte, in our efforts and land-back struggles.”
The menu, too, is intentional and largely reflects Native foods and the diverse cultures that make up the multigenerational neighborhood.
“We had to think outside the box and be reflective of our immediate community. We have a big Vietnamese population. So we wanted to do something familiar, yet different,” Montenegro said.
The tortas, for example, are made with a bánh mì baguette and a blend of flavors. Incorporating bison or venison reintegrates “Native foods into our diet,” he added.
The names of the dishes, such as “Free Palestine,” are another way the cafe said it engages with issues of colonialism and the experiences of Palestinians. “We want to be educational in every bite,” Montenegro said.
One titled “Tatanka’s Revenge” carries historical weight. “‘Tatanka’ is based on the Lakota language for bison [or buffalo],” he said. “[It’s about] understanding the ecocide and genocidal practices of the U.S. to kill off Native people and Native ways of living. [It’s a way] of bringing back the spirit of the bison to roam this land free, so that’s very representative of our menu.”
