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His friends believed that Raul O. Martinez had lost his mind. Martinez had a plan to sell soft-shell tacos out of a renovated ice cream truck on the streets of East Los Angeles.
"How will you sell those kinds of tacos?" he was asked. Despite the skepticism, Martinez, his wife and father at his side, parked the truck next to an East Los Angeles bar on a summer night in 1974.
Martinez sold $70 worth of tacos that first night and soon afterward was selling $150 an evening. Six months later, he opened the first King Taco restaurant.
This year, Martinez's King Taco Restaurants Inc. will post about $10 million in sales. The East Los Angeles company boasts three "taco trucks"-including a $100,000, 40-foot trailer-and 10 taco stands and restaurants. Martinez is preparing to expand the chain beyond its East and Central Los Angeles stronghold to the rest of Southern California and the state.
"They told me I was crazy," said Martinez, 46, sitting in King Taco's large conference and training room outfitted with a refrigerator, television monitors and videocassette recorders. "But . . . here I am."
The company Martinez has built is one that takes every opportunity to promote its main product. A mural inside...