El Torito Mexican Restaurant
600 Cannery Row

El Torito Mexican Restaurant

The area now occupied by the El Torito Mexican Restaurant was once the site of the Custom House Packing Corporation and Carmel Canning Company. The Carmel cannery was a World War I entry into the sardine industry boom. The Custom House Packing Co. began operation a decade later, just prior to the Wall Street crash of 1929. Although each weathered a difficult start-up, both survived until a seemingly inexhaustible supply of sardines disappeared.