Tito Rivera fled El Salvador in 1981 when a civil war broke out. He snuck across the border to work in the kitchen for Spago and Campanile for 14 years.

Lucky for us he saw the potential of the University Park neighborhood. n 2003, Rivera opened his own place - Viztango on 30th and Figueroa.

“I noticed there was nothing around, and we came up with the idea to bring in a restaurant,” he told Natalie Jarvey of the Daily Trojan. “I wanted to have the food like in Malibu, where I had been working, but bring it to a price that students could pay for.”

The 43-year-old owner now lives in Jefferson Park neighborhood, just west of the University Park neighborhood.