Meet La Burg LLC

We had the good fortune of connecting with La Burg LLC and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi La Burg LLC, can you tell us about an impactful book you’ve read and why you liked it or what impact it had on you?
I (Sophie) passed along the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara to Sisco after I read it and we both just really related to it. We both worked in fine dining for most of our professional careers so reading it just brought us right back to where we started and reminded us why we enjoy hospitality so much. We want the people to come to our pop ups to feel welcomes and like they are a part of what we are trying to create. That book really reminded us how to get back to creating an environment for our pop ups rooted in really great hospitality and making everyone feel welcomed.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
We are honestly most proud of the fact that we are still doing this and having fun and getting excited and creative every day when we work. It was definitely not easy and there will always be obstacles however, we have a great habit of joking around – albeit maybe a little much – but it helps to not take things too seriously and enjoy our days even when things get stressful. Plus, we learned really early that there is no greater attribute than being able to ask for help, we ask for a lot of help.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well we would definitely start by picking them up from the airport (that is true friendhship ). Then in no particular order and because we are both bad at planning we would give them an option of a few things. We may take them to breakfast at All Time, pupusas at California Kitchen and Grill on Virgil, or sandwiches from McCall’s and have a picnic in Barnsdall park. We would probably end up taking them around to some local pop ups at some point, maybe Riverstreet BBQ or whoever is at Club Teegee on any day. We like margartas at El Condor, the wings at Ye Rustic and bowling at Shatto Lanes. hiking the observatory or just walking around the neighborhood, we are big on flying by the seat of our pants, so there is not a lot of planning that goes on here 🙂

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To be really honest, our story would never have happened without a line cook that we both worked with who was nicknamed Pococho. He was the one who helped us create the habanero aioli that we use on our burger and that got us so excited about our future pop up. In addition to him we wouldn’t have been able to do this without our friends who also work in the industry that we bother with questions at any time of day. Our friends and family that volunteer their time to help us out when we are doing busy pop ups and rearrange and work on their days off for us as well as everyone that has come our to support us time and time again. We were both very lucky with the jobs we got when we moved to LA, our bosses and mentors encouraged, supported and did what they could to work with our schedule and pushed us to keep pursuing our goals. It really is a team effort and we wouldn’t have been able to do this without any of them.

Instagram: @laburglosangeles

Image Credits
Audrey Grewe
Ernesto Chavarria
Francisco Tapia