For Los Angeles restaurants, the theme of 2025 has been unshakable resilience. The year opened with the Eaton and Palisades fires devastating both sides of the city, followed by the expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids as summer arrived, which made restaurant workers more vulnerable. Through it all, restaurants remained gathering places for local communities, became distribution centers for community aid, and offered momentary respites. Amid the ongoing struggles, Los Angeles lost numerous beloved restaurants, from neighborhood go-tos for fried chicken, to Greek institutions, and more. This year, we asked Los Angeles chefs and restaurateurs which 2025 restaurant closures stuck with them.
These interviews have been edited for clarity.
Birdie G’s. Jim Sullivan
Birdie G’s and Cassia, Santa Monica
I opened my first restaurant in 1996, so basically the last 30 years I’ve been running restaurants in Los Angeles, and this has definitely been one of the hardest years I can remember. There are so many things happening at once between the fires; downturn in tourism; the homelessness; the situation with Hollywood since the strikes; the industry not really coming back, so many people out of work. Before, Los Angeles was always the last one to feel a recession and the first one out of it because we had the entertainment industry. We felt recessions but never like other places in the country; we were insulated. But right now it seems different. I’m thinking it will be a hard beginning of 2026 — it won’t be magically shifted. Since the fires hit, so many people have been displaced. I’m hoping though with FIFA coming here and California signing that tax credit Los Angeles will come back. I’m excited that Noma is coming to LA. It’s going to bring a lot of international journalists and travelers. It couldn’t be a better time.
Restaurants survive day to day. There is no money in banks, there never has been. You just get by day to day, week to week. I loved going to Cassia. I loved Birdie G’s. I think Jeremy Fox is such a great chef. Together, we kind of grew in Santa Monica. Rustic Canyon Group and my restaurants, we kind of built that restaurant scene in Santa Monica together. I thought all the restaurants Rustic brought to Santa Monica were pretty individual: Cassia, Rustic Canyon, Milo + Olive. These are places I enjoyed going to. I respect Jeremy so much for what he does and what he brings, the nod to Jewish cooking. It’s a huge loss. It’s someone you don’t want to see not operating in Santa Monica.
Cassia was somewhere I liked to go meet my girlfriend after work. You could feel like you’re living a normal life: Pop in and get some rice, get some noodles. I just have good memories of a cool vibey place that was near my restaurant. This business is a grind; it wears on you, it tires you out. You can’t just do what you do, you have to keep trying to stay relevant. That’s exciting and what keeps you pushing, but that’s also the hard part. — Josiah Citrin, chef/owner, Mélisse, Citrin, Augie’s on Main
Jollof arancini at Jikoni Alessandra Griffin
Jikoni in Citizen Public Market, Culver City
Kiano Moju’s Jikoni in Citizen Public Market was one of the saddest closures. Kiano was on a roll and pushing an AfriCali wave in Culver City. It’s crazy that the whole market is shut down, too. Jikoni was one of my favorite spots; the food is so familiar and her biryani was so delicious. Culver City lost one of the few Black operators it has — they had one that was a gem and now it’s gone. Another one is Post and Beam. We lost a community space and watering hole where I could see someone I know, we’ll chop it up, and it’s always love when I went in. Two Hommés picked up a lot of people who were employed by Post and Beam. I’ve been talking to Jon Cleveland [former co-owner of Post and Beam], asking him, “What’s the deal? You gotta feed these streets.” In 2025, we lost two good ones. — Yaw Marcus “chef Mando” Johnson, co-owner, Two Hommés
Throughout the construction and creation of Here’s Looking At You, we ate fried chicken. Not from the well-known wing spot a block east of us on Sixth Street, but from a little-known storefront one block west. We had to cross Western to get to Kokio, and while we pondered drapery and paint colors, we explored the Kokio chicken menu to the fullest extent: from the wings to the tenders to the fried chicken sandwiches — the latter I had to order without onion. Its Sixth Street location suffered a fire one day, and I longed for our neighbor to reopen, but it never did. Years passed, as did a pandemic.
One day this year, I was driving along Olympic when Kokio’s familiar logo appeared to me in a small shopping center. Kokio resurrected! (To be fair, I had no idea they had multiple locations scattered across the Southland.) I vowed to go on my next night off, and I ordered a bunch of wings for an Oscars viewing party of one. Then, I picked up a bunch of chicken to bring to Here’s Looking at You to help me survive a full cocktail menu tasting. I explained that in 2016, Jonathan and I ate so much of this chicken. It was an addiction. A special crispy, yes, but I especially loved how hot it was served temperature-wise. I returned over and over, and I would sit in the dining room, often alone, watching Korean music videos on the televisions. It seemed like a booming takeout business to me.
This fall, I was committed to picking up a large amount of wings for a potluck but I struggling to pull up their phone number, and I suddenly got the stunning message: “All locations permanently closed.” I was truly shook. I hated not knowing when it had happened, and it ached me to imagine all the struggles that led to their decision to close — close them all. I wish them renewal in whatever form they feel called to. — Lien Ta, co-founder, All Day Baby and Here’s Looking at You
I’ve been going to Patra since I was a kid, grabbing breakfast burritos before school and then later destroying burgers and onion rings after late nights out. I always loved the food and the vibe of their tiny dining room. It felt like the last domino in the neighborhood. And while restaurants come and go — that part is inevitable — Patra’s disappearance speaks to something bigger.
Utility dining — the everyday spots that quietly hold a community together — feels like it’s in real danger.
— Avish Naran
To me, it raises the question of how sustainable family-run places or solo ventures even are today. Utility dining — the everyday spots that quietly hold a community together — feels like it’s in real danger. Independent operators are up against restaurant groups (even the more boutique groups) that can negotiate lower processing fees, leverage stronger branding, get better buying power from vendors, and streamline operations in ways small restaurants simply can’t. So when a place like Patra closes, it’s not just a business changing over; it’s a reminder of how the industry is shifting and how difficult it’s become for the kinds of restaurants I grew up on to survive. Everyone needs to have branded to-go cups with intentional artwork these days. — Avish Naran, owner, Pijja Palace
Papa Cristo’s in Pico-Union and Spoon and Pork in Silver Lake
For me, it’s been all of them: they’re all really sad for the owners, employees, and their families. At Cielo a lot of the people we serve are from the restaurant industry. One that hit really hard was Papa Cristo’s because it had been there forever. We tried our first wines when we were there. It was a gathering place when we used to be in Koreatown for organizing. It makes me sad every time I drive by there. Another one that broke my heart is Spoon and Pork. This is your life savings you put into the restaurant, into the business. It hurts the owners, the community, and their families. Every time I hear about a restaurant closing, it’s heartbreaking and I think what we can do is go out as much as possible, as much as our budget allows to support these restaurants.— Odilia Yego, co-founder, Cielo; co-owner of Poncho’s Tlayudas and Lugya’h
Pizza of Venice, Altadena
Jaime Woolner [Pizza of Venice owner] is the person that most business owners or entrepreneurs are at heart. Jamie is this scrappy guy who opened this great Altadena pizza place. There are so few neighborhoods left in Los Angeles, and maybe Altadena is the very last one, where you could go up to Altadena and be scrappy. He’s the embodiment of let’s do it for the community and make things happen. We moved to Altadena in 2017, and would order Pizza of Venice, which felt like the perfect restaurant for the perfect neighborhood at the perfect time. It was just a special place. It was born out of just pure desire, and you could taste it in the food. It perfectly integrated into the neighborhood it was in and felt exactly like Altadena. In the new Altadena, there will probably be a shiny new building that makes it hard to be scrappy with that same underdog mentality. I miss all the Altadena restaurants we lost, but I miss Pizza of Venice because we’re all scrappy entrepreneurs under the surface. That place always felt super scrappy, and I love that. It’s a true loss. — Randy Clement, co-owner at Good Neighbor Bar
I’ve been dining at Rodded for a long time; I’ve been going there since I first came to the United States, so at least a decade. Joy, my wife, has been going there even longer — like 20 years. It’s a Thai-Chinese spot in Hollywood. I could be wrong but I think they’d been open for 30-plus years.
Rodded was known for their duck noodle soup. Every time I had it, it felt like I was in Chinatown in Thailand. The shrimp balls were also amazing. It was a place I aimed to eat at whenever I was in Thai Town. To me, it felt like any time I talked to a Thai-Chinese chef, they’d mention Rodded. Joy and I always loved chatting with the grandmas that worked there — it felt so special. I think the second generation owner took over and they didn’t want to continue anymore, but it’s so sad. For me, LA needs mom and pop restaurants. We’re a city known for our diversity of restaurants. These are the types of places that inspire, where people can go back and say, “This is why I’m cooking. This is why I decided to be a chef.” — Deau Arpapornnopparat, chef and founder of Holy Basil
Spoon & Pork
Spoon and Pork, Silver Lake and Sawtelle Japantown
For me, Spoon and Pork was the saddest closure. I loved that place, I loved those guys. Their story is similar to mine: being a really successful pop-up that made it to brick and mortar. Doing a cuisine that spoke to their culture and doing it really well. They went through so many ups and downs; trying to open on the Westside and it not working out. They struggled to make money on a cuisine that Los Angeles supposedly embraces. It’s the thing that frustrates me sometimes about Los Angeles: Can it get out of its own way of being a burgers, doughnuts, and pizza town? It claims to be a home to these diverse cuisines, but at the end of the day, lines are out the door for the same-old, same-old sometimes. As a person who’s in a similar boat — I’ve gotten accolades but sometimes get frustrated by the lack of people in the door for our Caribbean food, people not knowing what Caribbean food is. The accolades don’t necessarily match the feet coming through the door. You think of LA as a place where cuisines like ours can thrive and yet often I have more New Yorkers and out-of-towners in here than locals.
With Spoon and Pork, my wife would make fun of me because she would ask on my day off what I want to eat and I would immediately say “Patita.” It’s a perfect thing. They had the best lumpia in town. Adobo chicken. Everything was good, executed well, consistent. They were just so passionate. They did everything the right way.
There’s only good things coming along — it can’t get any worse than 2025. We started with a burn, and we’re like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
— Rashida Holmes
In Los Angeles, we lost a huge chunk of our customer base. I have a fairly large amount of friends in the film industry who are no longer in the film industry and subsequently have left Los Angeles. The impact of that on our customer base as restaurants … it’s a slow burn but a significant one. That chunk of people with disposable income that supported this town from an economic standpoint — restaurants are the first ones to feel the impact of that loss. I don’t know how you replace hundreds of thousands of people with disposable income in a city. I don’t know what the future holds in terms of that. I don’t see it coming back, so then what replaces it? There are too many restaurants to support what’s left. There’s going to be a serious culling and then maybe it will even itself out, but that will leave a lot of people without their places of business. Places we love are not going to make it. I hope to survive.
I’m glad that I’ve built a business that feels recession proof; building a quick-service restaurant. We can keep on keeping on. I’m pretty optimistic in terms of Bridgetown. We also have a lot of things in Los Angeles coming up: Olympics. 2027 Super Bowl. World Cup. Things to pull us out of what feels like a doomsday year. There’s only good things coming along — it can’t get any worse than 2025. We started with a burn, and we’re like a phoenix rising from the ashes. — Rashida Holmes, Bridgetown Roti
Yakitoriya, Sawtelle Japantown
Yakitoriya on Sawtelle closed after 20-plus years in business. My boyfriend — who is also a chef — and I started dining there regularly around 2021. It was our go-to date place since it was open on Mondays, a night off for many people in the restaurant industry. The pace of dining was so special because our high-paced jobs mean we usually find ourselves cramming food into our faces between rushes. At Yakitoriya, the food came out slowly — something we saw many other customers complain about. But for us, it was the perfect chance to babysit some beers and skewers for two or three hours and catch up on the week. The husband and wife team charmed us with their bickering (as a member of a family business I completely understand) and always greeted us with amazing warmth and hospitality. Yakitoriya was special to us because it was an intimate mom and pop and a dying breed of restaurant in LA where you could experience slow dining. — Cathy Asaphu, chef at Ayara