So many celebrity photos cover the inside of the original El Cholo off Western Avenue that they probably hold up the restaurant as much as the walls themselves. There are the sports icons ...

There are two ways that people look at what filmmaker Brandon Loran Maxwell calls “homeboy culture,” that of the pachucos, cholos, and lowriders who’ve long been a part of the L.A. fabric.

But El Cholo, the venerable Mexican institution founded nearly a century ago, is a throwback in more ways than one. Many employees have stayed. And stayed. At the Western Avenue location ...

At El Cholo restaurant, the emphasis has always been on trying to collect stories, said Ron Salisbury, the owner of the small Mexican chain and grandson of its founders. As it celebrated its 100th ...