The devastating Los Angeles wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people and forced more than 150,000 residents from Malibu to the San Fernando Valley to flee are now threatening the local restaurant industry.
Several local eateries were wiped out entirely by the Eaton and Palisades fires while others have seen a dramatic fall in business since so many of their usual customers are displaced.
“We served 45 to 50 people last night on a shift when we usually have 200,” Tal Ronnen, owner of the upscale vegan fine-dining eatery Crossroads Kitchen in the Beverly Grove section of LA, told Eater Los Angeles over the weekend.
“We can’t keep going on like this.”
Ronnen said his business will struggle to continue employing the 60 workers who “rely on us to make a living.”
“I don’t want to tell anyone what to do right now… But if they have the means, order something to-go,” Ronnen told Eater Los Angeles.
Bret Thompson, a Michelin-star caliber chef who owns and operates Pez Coastal Kitchen in Pasadena, said that his restaurant has seen an 85% drop in business in the last two weeks.
“It’s been heartbreaking for our staff. We’ve only been able to keep them on for three or four days a week,” Thompson told Eater Los Angeles.
Glancing at the empty tables inside his restaurant, Thompson sighed: “It feels like we’ve all been through a war.”
Caitlin Cutler is co-owner of Ronan, the Melrose Avenue eatery that has been recognized by Michelin for its hand-tossed Neapolitan-style pizzas.
Cutler, who owns and operates Ronan alongside her husband, chef Daniel Cutler, told Eater Los Angeles that the emptiness was as much psychological as it was financial.
“Everyone has this eerie sense of wanting to be home, safe, inside, and away from bad air quality… I feel like people have left LA to escape,” Cutler said.
According to Cutler, she and her husband closed the restaurant for two days while the fires raged.
Once they reopened, “we found that no one was going out.”
“Our covers dropped by 60 to 70 percent,” she said.
The timing of the fires could not have been worse for chef Yaw Marcus Johnson, co-owner of Two Hommés in Inglewood, a diner specializing in West African cuisine which he had just had remodeled.
“We took out a personal loan to cover it,” Johnson told Eater Los Angeles.
While the fires continue to rage, “customers are not coming in,” he said. “A lot are displaced or don’t feel right leaving the house.”
“We kind of feel the same way,” Johnson continued.
“Some people can’t even afford this right now or even think about having a good dinner. But staff need to get paid.”
Felipe Ortega, a 64-year-old bartender at Gladstones in Pacific Palisades, spent nearly four decades at the restaurant.
Now, it stands damaged, its future uncertain, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“What are we going to do, papi?” his daughter asked him, as he struggled with looming rent and medical bills.
The destruction has hit many beloved establishments, including Moonshadows in Malibu, which was reduced to ashes.
In response, local restaurant owners and nonprofit organizations have launched fundraising campaigns to aid displaced workers.
Gladstones has set up a GoFundMe, raising over $21,000 of its $250,000 goal.
Café de Leche, a coffee shop in Altadena, went up in flames, leaving six employees jobless.
The community has rallied, donating thousands of small contributions to keep them afloat.
Other businesses like Side Pie, Fox’s Restaurant and Amara Kitchen have created similar initiatives.
“These are the people who make restaurants hum. They are the heart of restaurants,” said Alycia Harshfield, president of the California Restaurant Foundation, which is offering grants to impacted workers.