He Started Smoking Meat to Feed His Sick Father. Now Los Angeles Circles the Block in Watts for 105BBQ.

Long before anyone is watching, before the pre-orders and the cars circling the block, Raul Martinez Jr. is already up and running his smoker at a house on the corner of a one-way street in Watts. The barbecue has a name now, 105BBQ, and a waitlist. It started with a much smaller goal: feeding one man who could no longer taste his own food.

That man is his father. When doctors diagnosed the elder Raul Martinez with cirrhosis of the liver, they put him on a bland, restrictive diet that stripped the pleasure out of eating. He had no appetite and no way to enjoy a meal while managing the disease. Then the pandemic hit, and his son went looking for a way to cook bold flavors his dad could still have without hurting his health. "I found smoke," Martinez told L.A. TACO. "I said, okay, let me go buy a smoker and try it out."

The father who could not taste his food

Smoking turned out to be the answer to a medical problem and the start of a calling Martinez did not know he was looking for. He began bringing the ribs and chicken he made to his day job, and his coworkers could not get enough of it. So he launched a small pop-up out of his parents' house in Lynwood, selling barbecue every other Sunday.

The first menu was humble and it was complete: rib sandwiches, mac and cheese, coleslaw, house barbecue sauce, and pickles. A friend sold micheladas out front. Neighbors walked over and spread the word the old way, one plate at a time. Martinez started taking pre-orders, and his follower count grew slowly, mostly by word of mouth. He was building something real, if small, and it was working.

Starting over from a smoker, twice

Then it nearly ended. In July of 2023, a severe infection left Martinez unable to walk well for months, and he lost everything he had built. With his body sidelined, he went back to the one place that had always steadied him. He returned to the comfort of his smoker.

This time he started experimenting with breakfast burritos, and the method tells you how seriously he takes it. He smokes tri-tip and lets the flavor penetrate the meat for five hours, then wraps it in its own beef tallow for the final hour. He smokes bell peppers until they are charred and soft, the way you would treat a chile relleno, only with smoke instead of open flame. Everything goes into a fourteen-inch flour tortilla, seared on the fold. He brought the burritos to his day job and got twenty orders, then thirty. Word moved the way it does in neighborhoods where people still talk to each other, growing from the slow, real kind of traction that does not show up in analytics.

The brisket taco

The dish that would change his life is the brisket taco, and it is built like a small piece of engineering. Martinez starts the brisket over a chimney full of lump charcoal for indirect grilling, then adds post oak, staying true to Texas style barbecue. A few pieces of almond wood go in next for a longer, steadier burn that keeps the coal bed alive through the cook.

The assembly is just as deliberate. He lays cheese directly on the tortilla and crisps it rather than melting it. "If it's only melted, the brisket sticks," he explains. "The crust you get by crisping it gives it structure." From there he layers a salsa verde for heat, since he does not like food too spicy, then pico de gallo for a fresh balance against the rich brisket. He finishes with cotija crumbled so fine it looks like a light snowfall, a last hit of salt at the end.

There is a philosophy underneath all of it. "The way I see it, the whole world fits in a tortilla," Martinez said. "So if you could blend any style of food from anywhere in the world in a tortilla, and it tastes good, why can't we all just get along?" The idea of bringing very different ingredients together for the sake of one great bite is the whole mission, stated in food.

A neighborhood that still works like one

When Martinez and his fiancee Maria Flores bought their house on a corner lot in Watts, they got something they were not expecting. They got a neighborhood that still works like one. Kids are outside every afternoon. Neighbors know each other's names. People say good morning and mean it.

Martinez keeps a nopal plant out front. He gives the neighbors nopales, and they give him lemons. "It feels like we're back in Mexico, visiting my family," he said, describing little towns where you knock on a door for a bit of tortillas or cheese. When he opens his gate for a pop-up, the block shows up. Someone brings beer, someone brings a dish they made the day before, and everyone trades and eats together. That community is what kept him going when the orders were thin and the algorithm was not listening.

The video that changed everything

The turn came through Lui Cee, a content creator who has built a following by helping small businesses. Martinez sent a low-key message: he did a home-based backyard barbecue, they were small, and if Lui Cee was hungry on Friday, he should pull up in the morning. Lui Cee came, ate, and called it fire.

The next week was Martinez's birthday. He wanted brisket for breakfast, so he smoked one for himself, then figured he might as well open it up for orders. Lui Cee came back, and this time Martinez handed him tacos. Two videos went up in consecutive weeks. "Within minutes, one video just changed everything," Martinez said, still sounding a little stunned. "Like, literally, within minutes."

The messages flooded in and pre-orders tripled. People who had never been to Watts showed up on the one-way street, willing to wait, willing to circle the block. One woman pulled up, put her car in park, and started eating right there, before she ever made it home, while Martinez's sister handed out orders and watched it happen. Today there is a waitlist for the breakfast burritos alone. Pre-orders sell out within days of posting, and people send messages offering to pay in advance just to hold a spot.

Cooking like someone is watching

The best part of the story is the one that closes the circle. His father, the reason any of this exists, now shows up to help at the pop-ups. He started by chopping wood. Then he asked his son to teach him how to run the smoker. Today he works the smash burgers and is learning how to make tacos.

Martinez talks about the work the way some people talk about prayer. "I talk to my smoker," he said. "I talk to my wood. I talk to the meat. If I pick up a piece of wood and it doesn't feel right, I put it back." The same care runs through his shopping, down to refusing a bag of tomatoes that does not look right. Some people cook for the masses. Martinez cooks like someone is watching, and that someone might be his neighbors, or the whole block that shows up for him, or the father who once could not taste his food and now stands at the burgers beside him. He wants to get it right for all of them. You can find 105BBQ on Instagram, where the next pre-order tends to sell out before most people finish scrolling past it.

Sources

L.A. TACO, "Watts' Viral Tri-Tip BBQ Smoker Just Wanted to Feed His Sick Dad. Now He Feeds a Community" by Karina Soriano (Aug. 10, 2026). 105BBQ on Instagram (2300 E. 107th St., Los Angeles, CA 90059). Lui Cee on Instagram. Images: courtesy Karina Soriano for L.A. TACO and 105BBQ.