Some of Oakland’s best tacos are in the back of an arcade.

A mysterious black curtain indicates that you have found the place. It’s easy to miss, but a menu on the wall and a QR code to scan to order confirm that you’ve arrived at your destination: Taqueria La Venganza.

Venganza means revenge in Spanish, but the sound of the word also hints at the taco shop’s defining characteristic: it’s completely vegan. Now, I understand that citing vegan tacos as some of the best in Oakland is a controversial move. But here’s a precedent: In 2018, LA Taco awarded Taqueria La Venganza the Best Taco in Los Angeles.
Not just the best vegan taco. Better tacos. In The Angels.
But back to revenge: Chef-Owner Raúl Medina has it all. Revenge against the meat industry, against climate change, but also against people who doubt him.

“I get a lot of hate because I’m a loudmouth,” he told me one afternoon just before the riot at Oakland’s monthly First Fridays festival. “I will go to Los Angeles, I will do a pop-up. I’ll come back here and then post: ‘Hey, guess what LA? The best taco in Los Angeles is from damn Oakland. How about that?’ … I have to be my biggest fan because I’m in that vegan club that everyone wants to make fun of so quickly.
In fact, Medina is a loud social media personality, quick to clap his hands and say it like it is. He is passionate about veganism, particularly when he reminds people about the inhumane working conditions in meat and dairy processing.
With a wink, he calls Instagram his “biggest responsibility,” but his lively presence has built him an audience: he has nearly 50,000 followers. People may come for the witty posts, but they stay for the food, which is as delicious as it is innovative.


From carnitas made from yuba (tofu skin) and carne asada made from dehydrated soybeans to chicken made from finely shredded soybeans, their vegan tacoria expressions are all convincingly filling and delicious, whether used in tacos or massive 2-pound. burritos But Medina doesn’t stop there: it also offers cauliflower al pastor, vegan pressed chicharrón and soy-free versions of carnitas and chicharrón made with king mushrooms.

La Venganza also cooks nachos and serves horchata and the sweet buns known as conchas. On Fridays and Saturdays, there are steaming bowls of pozole, made with corn, oregano, and chiles, using vegan lard, of course, and requiring a meticulous seven-hour cook time.

From curbside popup to NPR

A decade ago, disappointed with the vegan Mexican options available, Medina decided he wanted to make tacos that actually tasted like the ones he grew up with.
“There was sweet potato on a tortilla, or kale on a tortilla, like a salad on a tortilla, and they call it a taco,” he said. “I’m like, ‘No, sorry, I’m Mexican.’ I want a greasy, greasy, melt-in-your-mouth, spicy texture.”
Medina is from Orange County but lived on a ranch in Mexico with her grandmother for a few years as a teenager. When he informed his grandmother that he had decided to become a vegetarian, she told him that he would starve. But at the same time, she taught him how to cook, from choosing the right heirloom chiles for each particular dish to preparing traditionally vegetarian Mexican dishes like chile relleno.

When Medina first moved to Oakland in 2014, she was working as a paralegal for an immigration attorney. She found the job depressing.
“Half my job was telling people, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you,’” he said.
So she took the cooking skills she had learned from her grandmother and started making plant-based tacos. She was inspired in part by Oakland’s thriving vegan scene, with everything from vegan soul food like Souley Vegan to vegan Buddhist cuisine.
“It was like a big wake-up call about what veganism 2.0 should be, which is community-based, which is ethnic-based,” he said. “…We need something with flavor. We need something with thought, creativity and culture behind it”.
He started by making tacos for dates in Lake Merritt, asking them what they thought and how much they would pay for them. Things escalated from there.
“I hated my job so much that I was like, I’m going to ask for an iron,” she said. “I’m going to get out of my studio apartment, I’m going to sell these tacos and see how I can do it. If I can somehow pay my rent with that… then I’m fine.”

In his first popup, 30 people were online. The next one, 50. Then 100. And then, he took La Venganza to Los Angeles.
“We probably had a line of about 400 or 500 people waiting for about three blocks,” Medina recalled. “They had never seen cleats like this at the time. Everything was jackfruit, and they sold cheeks, tongues, brains, beef tripe, all the Mexican classics, but the vegan version… We were a success”.
More success quickly followed: a slot at Coachella, a feature story on NPR, that esteemed victory in LA Taco’s “Taco Madness” competition.

A national takeover

After a time without an Oakland corner store kitchen, La Venganza moved into Emporium last summer. Despite the quirks of the place, on karaoke night, Medina said, “It’s the screaming of drunk people… We’re in the kitchen like, oh my God, we’re trying to listen to Mexican music here.” – La Venganza has been very successful in the space, thanks in part to its strong DoorDash operation.

So successful, in fact, that the day I spoke with him, Medina was picking up the keys to a second location.
In North Oakland, in the former Café Colucci space at 6419 Telegraph Ave., the new digs will be Taqueria La Venganza’s first stand-alone restaurant. Medina hopes to open the store in late summer. It will only be takeout, but the new place will give you more freedom with the menu.

“I want like every rainbow of agua fresca I can make,” he said. “We are going to make chilaquiles, more things that are a little more intensive in the kitchen.”
This is just the beginning of what Medina hopes will be a national conquest. His ambitions are endless, from opening more stores in the Bay Area to expanding into Southern California to canning his own pozole and selling it in supermarkets. She also wants to package and sell her vegan meats in taquerias and Mexican markets and become the Mexican answer to Impossible Foods. In fact, he already supplies some taco shops.
“If you’re a taco man, if you have a lunch truck and you sell my meats as a vegan option, that’s the money I’m making as a brown person, money you’re making as a brown person, and a brown person eating your tacos Medina said. “That’s beautiful for me. That’s the kind of cyclical economy I want.”
Eventually, Medina even hopes to franchise La Venganza and open restaurants across the country. It might all sound a bit like pie in the sky, but it has investors backing it. He raised over $117,000 from a Wefunder last year.

“It’s hard because we’re trying to do everything at once… but I only have my youth once,” he said. “This is fun for me. I’m so overwhelmed when someone says, “Hey, my mom had your pozole and she thought it was amazing… It’s enough motivation to see how well we’ve done to want to do this forever.”

‘Was that vegan?’

On a Thursday night right after work I stopped by Emporium with some friends. The arcade was quiet, it was pouring with rain outside, but hey, it was happy hour.
We ordered $7 cocktails, found a spot by the window to watch the rain, then marched to the curtain in the back to situate the tacos.

The chicken was my favorite, made from smoky grilled yuba marinated in pineapple and jalapeno. The asada nachos are also a must if you’re craving a sharing bar food: the most compelling vegan nacho cheese I’ve ever had, a gluttonously meaty vegan asada, and a smorgasbord of spicy and savory toppings: guacamole, onions, beans, salsa, pico de gallo, whatever.
As a long-time pescatarian, I couldn’t confidently compare these vegan meats to the original, but my carnivore boyfriend said if he hadn’t been told they were vegan, he would have had no idea. That’s something that actually happens sometimes, according to Medina.
“They order, they pay, they eat their food,” he said. “They come back and say, ‘Was that vegan? Brother, I just found out. And I’m like, ‘Do you want your money back?’ No, they say it was delicious.”

Medina smiled, a hint of revenge behind her smile.
“I’m super happy about that.”
Taqueria La Venganza, inside Emporium, 1805 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Open Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. for takeout and delivery.