The facade of Birria Los Socios stands with plywood boards covering broken windows on June 6. Photo by Andrew Lopez.

A popular birria restaurant in Boyle Heights was forced to shutter its doors on Wednesday after an early morning fire destroyed the business. 

Flames tore through the Eastside birria restaurant early Wednesday morning. Photo by Andrew Lopez.

Jose Pacheco, owner of Birria Los Socios, shared on Instagram that his life’s work had been ripped from both him and the community it served.

 “…Everything my family and I have poured our hearts and souls into, reduced to ashes by a devastating fire,” Pacheco wrote. “The sight of our dreams and hard-earned business engulfed in flames was beyond heartbreaking.”

Firefighters responded to a row of one-story commercial buildings on fire near 3rd and Indiana streets shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday, according to an LAFD alert.There were no reported injuries. 

One of the buildings was Pacheco’s business. Photos on social media showed the charred interior of the popular eatery with flames scarring the exterior. 

Birria Los Socios began as a food truck in 2017 and established their brick-and-mortar location in Boyle Heights just three years later. The restaurant offers cheese birria quesadillas, mulitas and birria pizzas. In addition to its Boyle Heights brick-and-mortar at 3544 E. 3rd Place, Los Socio’s food trucks also serve Cypress Park and West Covina.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The business set up a GoFundMe to help offset the costs of rebuilding the Eastside restaurant. 

Andrew Lopez is a Los Angeles native with roots across the Eastside. He studied at San Francisco State University and later earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to Los Angeles from the Bay Area to report for Boyle Heights Beat from 2023 to 2025 through UC Berkeley’s California Local News Fellowship. When he is not reporting, Lopez mentors youth journalists through The LA Local’s youth journalism program. He enjoys practicing photojournalism and covering the intersections of culture, history and local government in Eastside communities.

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