Chabelita Tacos from “Truth or Dare”

Roadside taco stands don’t usually conjure up images of the macabre. Today’s locale is no different. In fact, the eatery – Chabelita Tacos – is a bright and colorful addition to the Harvard Heights skyline. But since it did appear in a memorable scene in the 2018 horror flick Truth or Dare, I thought it was only appropriate to include it in my Haunted Hollywood postings.

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Chabelita Tacos pops up toward the end of Truth or Dare, in the scene in which Markie Cameron (Violett Beane) receives a truth challenge from her father, Roy Cameron (Brady Smith), via an old iPhone video while she is sitting alone at a desolate outdoor restaurant.

Thanks to a street sign reading “Western” visible in the background of the segment, pinpointing the eatery was a snap. I had already tracked down the pad where Markie lived with her friends Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) and Penelope Amari (Sophia Ali) in the movie to 2233 West 21st Street and figured the restaurant was likely nearby. So I opened up Google maps to where Western runs through that area and found Chabelita Tacos almost immediately, literally right around the corner from the house!

I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk it a few days later.

While signage in the windows proclaims that the restaurant serves the “Best Mexican Food in L.A.” (a sentiment Chowhounders wholeheartedly back up, though Yelpers do not), we had already eaten when we arrived on the premises, so we did not get to sample any of the fare.

Though technically a walk-up taco stand . . .

. . . the place has quite a bit of interior seating.

Surprisingly, aside from the fact that it has been around since at least 1992, I could not find much information about the history of Chabelita Tacos posted anywhere online – nor was I able to figure out what “Chabelita” translates to in English.

In the Truth or Dare scene, Markie is seated outside of Chabelita Tacos at one of the metal tables positioned along West 20th Street . . .

. . . on the same bench that I am sitting on in the photo below (though I am facing the opposite direction). How cool is it that the image of the divided food plate visible on the wall behind Markie in the bottom screen capture above is still painted on Chabelita’s wall?!

The area used is pictured below, though from a different vantage point than what was shown onscreen.

While the segment shot on the premises was brief, it was seriously creepy thanks to the iPhone video of Roy, whose face became warped when the demon Calax took over his body.

Chabelita Tacos was also featured in the opening scene of the 2003 comedy National Security as the spot where Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) and Charlie Reed (Timothy Busfield) grab a late night bite.