What happened to Fresno’s Tacos El Cabezon? Evictions, $500k ruling, missing owner
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- Tacos El Cabezon owner Armando Arias Jr. has been found safe after going missing.
- Arias has a $507,058.48 judgment that was reaffirmed in Fresno County on April 10.
- Multiple Tacos El Cabezon locations are closed, evicted, or listed for rent.
One of Fresno’s most popular taco sellers was the epicenter of a social media firestorm in recent days when his restaurant abruptly closed and he went missing.
Fresno Police say Armando Arias, Jr., owner of Tacos El Cabezon, has been found and is safe. But the man whose Mexicali-style tacos drew lines to Maroa and Shaw avenues and plenty of media coverage appears to be in financial trouble, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
His downtown restaurant is closed. He’s been kicked out of two other locations — one with an eviction notice on the door. One of his food trucks is up for rent online.
What happened to Tacos El Cabezon?
Attempts to reach Arias on Monday and Tuesday were unsuccessful.
The biggest of his bills appears to be a court judgment for $507,058.48.
It stems from a case in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, between a trucking company Arias once ran called Cabezon Transport in Southern California and Ohio-based Transcap II.
It’s not clear what the case was about, as none of the attorneys in the case nor the company that filed the complaint returned messages seeking comment. KMPH 26 reported the case stemmed from a loan that was not paid back, but this could not be independently verified.
Ohio court records show Arias did not participate in a phone-based hearing in September 2024. Records also show he was made aware of the hearing when papers were served by a process server. A judge approved the default judgment when Arias did not participate in the hearing.
The judgment was reaffirmed in Fresno County Superior Court on April 10. Records show the judgment includes interest of 10% a year.
Restaurants closed
Arias stopped selling at Maroa and Shaw earlier this year.
He opened a restaurant in March on Fulton Street in downtown Fresno with plans to open another at McKinley and Fruit avenues.
He also had one taco truck parked occasionally at Blackstone and Bullard avenues, and had purchased another.
Today, none of those places are selling tacos.
The downtown location is closed, with no sign on the door. A customer pulled up Monday, hoping to try the tacos he’d read about on social media, only to see the lights off.
The McKinley taqueria never opened and there’s a “for rent” sign on the building.
Landlord Armando Salazar said Arias paid him four months rent, but not the most recent month.
“Then he just left with no paying the rent,” he said. “I just asked him to move.”
He declined to say how much the rent was, though he said it was low. He took Arias’ deposit as the last month’s rent. The water bill remains unpaid, Salazar said.
Tacos El Cabezon was also discovered cooking meat without a permit in an alley behind the location in January, after the Fresno County Department of Public Health’s Environmental Health Division responded to a complaint. A couple was spotted cooking meat on a barbecue and loading a pan into the back of an SUV to sell at another location, according to a health inspector’s report.
Meanwhile, one of the Tacos El Cabezon food trailers is up for rent on Facebook Marketplace.
At the original location at Maroa and Shaw, an eviction notice is posted on the door dated March 31.
It says Arias has five days to pay $8,500 or quit the property. That includes $3,500 in February rent and $5,000 for March rent.
The landlord did not return a message seeking comment.
This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 12:00 PM.
