January 5, 2025
Los Angeles Times
2024 was brutal for Los Angeles restaurants. Here are some notable closures
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Sunday. I’m your host, Andrew J. Campa. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:
- More than 100 notable L.A. restaurants closed in 2024.
- Shock after Fullerton plane crash kills 2, injures nearly 20.
- How to watch the 2025 Golden Globe Awards today.
- And here’s today’s e-newspaper.
There’s a good chance your favorite eatery closed in 2024
Restaurants throughout Los Angeles suffered a trying 2023, with dozens closing amid inflation and pricing concerns.
Hope for a smoother 2024 fizzled fast and by December there were more than 100 notable closures tracked by the L.A. Times tally.
The shuttered list included a few from the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants List and multiple Michelin-starred tasting-menu restaurants up until the New Year.
The difficulties affected businesses at every level.
My colleague Stephanie Breijo tracked the culinary carnage earlier this week and offered some reasons for what happened, what may follow and highlights some of the fallen from 2024.
What led to these closures?
Restaurateurs point to several contributing factors — some of which began in 2024, and some of which continue to reverberate from the pandemic.
An increased minimum wage, a rise in the cost of insurance, pandemic-era loans and back rent coming due and sustained fallout from 2023’s entertainment-industry strikes have affected restaurants throughout the region.
Inflation not only for food but the cost of goods and services, such as kitchen repairs or equipment replacement, hurt the bottom line. And while inflation has slowed, food prices still rose 25% from 2019 to 2023, according to the USDA.
Many of these factors are expected to remain problems in 2025.
“Costs are higher than ever, risks are higher than ever,” Wax Paper co-owner Lauren Lemos told The Times. “I always want to have some kind of optimistic outcome for the future, but I do really worry, ‘Is it going to be sustainable?’ I’m not sure we’ll have mom-and-pop restaurants for a long time more.”
Silver Lake’s Alimento bid farewell in September
After a decade of fresh pastas, photo-worthy fried chicken sandwiches and some of Silver Lake’s favorite Italian food, Alimento closed in September.
Chef-owner Zachary Pollack decided to shutter the cozy neighborhood restaurant after “a rollercoaster of challenges and steeper challenges” that included COVID pivots, entertainment-industry strikes and inflation.
Pollack’s pizzeria, Cosa Buona, is open in Echo Park.
Atla concludes brief run
Enrique Olvera’s Venice version of Atla, one of the global chef’s modern Mexican restaurants, was more than twice the size of its New York City counterpart when it debuted last summer.
A follow-up to Olvera’s Arts District spots Damian and Ditroit, Atla was highly anticipated and served casual, health-minded salads, tacos and other dishes, some of which were unique to L.A., while others, like Atla’s fan-favorite chicken soup, made their way to the West Coast.
It closed quietly in September but remains open in New York. Damian and Ditroit remain open in L.A.
Cypress Park’s B’ivrit’s goodbye
After years of pop-ups with herbaceous falafel, fluffy pita and fresh hummus, chef Amit Sidi finally launched a space of her own on a small patio in Cypress Park last year.
After a tumultuous split with her business partners in the space, B’ivrit closed its patio in the spring, but Sidi and her restaurant can still be found popping up in L.A.; follow on Instagram for updates.
Beverly Hills’ Bicyclette padlocks
Celebrated French restaurant Bicyclette, from the chef-owners of République, closed in March along with its adjacent tasting-menu restaurant, Manzke.
“Our partners along with Marge and I have decided it is best to close Manzke and Bicyclette,” Walter Manzke told The Times in a statement earlier this year.
He declined to provide a reason for the closures, but a representative for the restaurant group Sprout L.A. told Eater L.A., which first reported the closures, that it was “due to financial losses.”
Venice’s Blue Star Donuts
After nearly a decade, popular doughnut shop Blue Star Donuts closed abruptly in Venice in July.
The chain, founded in 2012 in Portland, Ore., remains open there with multiple locations. The chain specialized in 18-hour brioche-style doughnuts.
These were just a few of the restaurants and eateries that closed. Check out the full list here.