Bäcoshop, Josef Centeno's Culver City fast-casual restaurant, opens Thursday

Will this serve just the YaBs (young & beautiful ), or normal commoners as well?

If Centeno offers a menu that’s not heavy on gluten-free, vegan, “me and that chicken were on a first name basis” stuff, maybe the OaU’s (Older and Uglier) folks like me have a shot at piercing their threshold?

Kidding aside, I think and hope this is the beginning - a real beginning - of better things to come in DTCC (rolling eyes at Ramen Roll). Aside from a FEW good to solid choices in this immediate area, DTCC has been on the slippery muddy slope now for a while. If they truly are quick AND tasty, they will succeed.

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DTCC is (1) a place for a quick lunch for Sony, MGM, etc., people; and (2) local people trying to feed their post-millennial children dinner.

OK, got it: OFSO! (“Old farts stay out” )

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that means you darwin, you are older than dirt !

FYI, they’re serving free food all day starting at noon until they run out.

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Damn, of all the days to be out of the country…

It looks like DTCC is becoming an incubator. Both Bacoshop and Ramen Roll have opened spots here with an eye to expanding nationwide. Even sweetgreen has a test kitchen at the Platform. I guess we get to be the guinea pigs. How fun!

I dropped by today. The line goes out the door, but only because there is not a lot of space inside. It went quick.


They have hot sauce and it’s great. Not too vinegary and not crazy spicy.

Chile Shrimp Baco, Siracha, buttermilk cabbage slaw, mint, $9; side of Beets, $4.


Tasty shrimp with a good grill flavor. (But they don’t say anything about the onions in the description, which is annoying.) The “baco” is so good! It’s not like a tortilla or naan or flatbread. I don’t know what it is. A little chewy, not really dense, but not squishy. And it’s buttery, but not greasy at all. I really liked it.

Green Herb Chicken Baco, thyme, Meyer lemon vinaigrette, spices yoghurt, green cabbage, parsley, $8; side of Cheddar Hash Browns with Siracha ketchup, $4.


Nice grilled chicken and dressing, but they kind of went overboard with the cabbage, which was purple, not green, as the menu said. The hash browns are more like dense little mashed potato balls, they were good though. Kid food.

So far I like it. Service was friendly and patient. The crowd is about you would expect. :sunglasses:

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Alcohol license ?

The LA Times articles indicates, “…wines and beers on tap…” and something like, “will have bottles of wine for sale to go.”

There was no alcohol on offer when I was there.

Having just been to Bäco Mercat in DTLA last weekend, we figured we’d go try the new Bäcoshop spot to compare. Sadly, there is not much in common, to my taste.

We had the Roasted Eggplant baco ($8) and cheese melt ($8) with steak (+$4) and a side of Sesame Carrots ($4). The eggplant was grease mush city, unfortunately. And the cheese melt was just a quesadilla, which is hard to screw up. But a $12 quesadilla if you add protein.

I know they’re going for a more casual, to-go type of spot at Bäcoshop, and if I worked a block or two away, it’d be a fine lunch during the week. Or a good option for a quick bite before seeing a movie. Otherwise, I wouldn’t go out of my way to try it. You’re better off going downtown to Bäco Mercat. For instance, The Original Baco that I had at Mercat last week is $15 and was miles and miles better than the $12 cheese melt. Plus they have booze there.

I thought the actual shrimp and chicken was good, and I like the wrap, but those cooks seem to really love shredding cabbages. There’s shredded stuff all over everything.

Ultimately, it’s just another sandwich lunch spot, albeit a pretty decent one one for the neighborhood.

Yeah, I was just hoping it would be better based on what I’d had at Mercat. I just don’t think the fast casual type places opening up along that stretch add much to the area other than to give studio employees lunch options. For a sandwich for under $10, In-N-Out is right around the corner :slight_smile:

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Wow. I was impressed with my pork and chicken bacos, especially the chicken. And the food came out quick even though the joint was hopping. Agua fresca was good, too.

The food’s a little pricey but I think Centeno has a real fast-casual hit here.

Was driving by with E. a couple days ago, and he swerved the car around because he remembered I said I liked it. He ate his baco in three bites. And I was all, “It’s kind of small, isn’t it?” I hadn’t realized how tiny those sandwiches are for a normal person.

Huh…I wonder if they are smaller at the Bacoshop then?

The originals at Baco Mercat are fucking huge. So huge that if you go there and order one by yourself that’s pretty much all you can eat. In a discussion with the staff about the heftiness of them I once had they told me they average about 1,500 kcals. If you have a cocktail or two, that’s pretty much most people’s daily kcal allowance in a single Baco meal.

It would make sense if they were making smaller ones for the fast casual side of things, though.

They’re kind of an odd size. One wasn’t enough for me but two was just a little too much for lunch. Others with larger lunchtime appetites might disagree. The bacorrito looked slightly larger. I’m going to try that next time.

Definitely smaller. Maybe 2/3 the size. But also slightly cheaper than at the mothership. I think they’re trying to keep the price point for the bacos below $10 for the most part, but they may need to rethink that choice.

Idk, that seems right to me. That would mean they would clock in around 700-1000 kcals rather than 1200-1500 kcals.

It didn’t click for me before really but it makes sense that for a fast casual concept to franchise out they would need to make them smaller.

Although maybe they’re also simpler at the Bacoshop. A huge amount of the kcals in the mothership ones are in the wild array of sauces they use haha

I would imagine most of their target audience doesn’t want to eat 1,500 kcals in a single sandwich for lunch. So you might be stuck as a mineoty customer having to order two at a time if you’re a bodybuilder or something it seems, but I could also be way off since I haven’t been to the shop myself.

The notion of them being 3-bite sandwiches makes them sound far smaller than 2/3 the size of the originals, sounds more like 1/3.