Empanadas are Javier Rodriguez’s specialty at Antojitos Colombianos in Logan Heights.
“If you come to the restaurant, you don’t taste empanada? I think you’re losing something good,” he said laughing.
Rodriguez said he sold what little he had to start the restaurant 13 years ago with just a few tables. His daughters slept in the car outside while he and his wife fried up empanadas using his home recipe.
He’s one of a dozen Logan Heights business owners participating in Friday’s "Taste of Imperial" public event, an evening of live music, food and beer tastings along the neighborhood’s main road, Imperial Avenue.
He wants people from outside to sample the flavors of the community and get to know what it’s really like.
“We want people to know the community in here,” Rodriguez said, “because a lot of people doesn’t know Logan Heights and they think it’s like a scary area, maybe unsafe area.”
To Rodriguez, Logan Heights is a reminder of his hometown of Cali, Colombia. He likes to see children run around the murals at Chicano Park and hear Spanish being spoken wherever he walks.
He wants success not just for himself, but for the whole neighborhood.
“I want everybody to grow with me, businesses to develop more, and the city maybe to not forget about us in this area, to help us do more things,” he said.
Logan Heights has been historically separated from the rest of San Diego, first by redlining and then by freeway construction, which now binds it on both sides.
The predominantly Latino neighborhood was disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic — its unemployment and infection rates were among the highest in the county, and digital and language access barriers caused many of the area’s restaurants to miss out on small business aid.
The Logan Heights Community Development Corporation now helps the area’s businesses navigate those administrative hoops and connect with resources. They are putting on Taste of Imperial for the second year to help continue post-pandemic recovery, and celebrate the neighborhood’s identity, which development director Natasha Salgado said is one of resilience.
“It’s almost like you think of all of the horrible things that could happen to a community: segregated housing, redlining, discriminatory practices,” Salgado said.“Yet we’re still here. This community is still here. Our businesses are still here.”
Salgado believes the freeways have kept some people from other communities from venturing into Logan Heights. She invited them to cross that barrier.
“When we think about the community identity,” she said, “there’s more to San Diego than just downtown and just North Park.”
