Pupusa Con 2023 showcased food, drinks, music and entertainment. 2023 marks the second annual year of the event.

Pupusa Con is a brand new annual event for local Salvadorans in the SoCal area which took place on Sept. 24 in East Los Angeles.

The local event presented two areas for local Salvadorans to hang out such as the outdoor area that had food trucks and vendors with Salvadoran drinks and snacks.

The indoor portion of Pupusa Con had even more to offer such as more vendors selling snacks, packets with ingredients to make horchata and other mixes. More things that were being sold were shirts, hats and coffee.

Eder Rivas from “What’s That You’re Cookin’?” was one of many people to take the stage and showed the crowd how to make the best pupusas.

Stephanie Figueroa is one of the people that set up the event. Figueroa is part owner of the famous La Pupusa Urban Eatery located in the heart of Los Angeles and is known for their innovative dishes such as pupusa tacos and their 10-pound pupusa.

“It has been talked about for several years but two and a half years ago “What’s That You’re Cookin’?” and I decided there needed to be something vendor-based,” Figueroa said.

She also mentions that the event was made to also support vendors as she says she had witnessed a lot of mistreatment towards vendors.

The name of the event of course came from the pupusa but was given that name to pay respects to how much hard work goes into making a pupusa.

Pupusa Con was also set up with the help of Stephanie Rivas from “What’s That You’re Cookin’?” Rivas also has a small business of her own, she serves Salvadoran cuisine with her husband Eder and Katie Dubon who sells delicious Salvadoran soda.

Pupusa Con has been a very healing experience for Figueroa as a Salvadoran-American. She mentions that when she was a kid she would sell Salvadoran food with her grandmother such as chucos, tamales, pan con pollo and so on.

“Pupusa Con is going places,” Figueroa said with excitement, “We plan on making things even bigger and better every year with more support from the community.”

Figueroa says they are working very hard to create a much stronger foundation for people to see there is a lot of love and interest in the Salvadoran and Central American community and have real representation.

Tony Escoto is a Salvadoran-American content creator on social media called “Bayuncos” and was featured at Pupusa Con.

Escoto came in contact with Figueroa through social media so he could be a part of the new uprising event.

“It means a lot because it’s cool, it’s great, now we’re in a position where we’re bringing a lot of visibility to a community that didn’t really have a lot of visibility beforehand,” said Escoto.

He had a booth of his own at Pupusa Con and was selling mugs, cups, stickers and coffee straight from El Salvador called “Cafetal.”

Escoto explained that he got his coffee business after “Bayuncos” took off. He also talked about how he has a friend and his family has a cafetal in El Salvador.

Escoto and his friend began working together and imported Salvadoran coffee and roasted it in Long Beach, California. “None of it would’ve been possible without ‘Bayuncos,’ Escoto said with cumbia playing in the background.

Pupusa Con is now a new addition to LA Salvadoran events and amount of events will only grow.