Chef Monica May and partner Kristen Trattner’s famed diner returns as a weekend brunch pop-up called Nickel Diner Kitchen
Los Angeles has always had a knack for mixing high and low. This is a place where cartoons, hot rods and Googie architecture have gone from being derided to hung on the walls of museums. Chef Monica May admired the popular luxuries of the 1950s coffee shops, where inexpensive hamburgers and pancakes could be served up in deluxe, artful environments.
Bringing high-quality and innovative comfort food to a forlorn spot near Skid Row was the ultimate challenge for May and her partner Kristen Trattner when they opened the Nickel Diner on a block of Downtown’s Main Street filled with social service agencies and SRO Hotels in 2008. Los Angeles named it one of L.A.’s Best New Restaurants the following year.
Nickel Diner in the January, 2009 issue of Los Angeles magazineCredit: Photo by Jessica Boone/January, 2009 issue of Los Angeles magazine
Artists had lived Downtown since the 1970s, but the revival that would bring explosive population growth didn’t kick off until the turn of the century. “We started exploring Downtown together,” says May. “We fell in love and then fell in love with Downtown. It was a three-way.”
The couple transformed an abandoned taco shack/drug front into a charming, egalitarian neighborhood diner that won the hearts and minds of patrons that ranged from Jonathan Gold and Guy Fieri to neighbors in the SROs. Nickel Diner survived the pandemic, but its ripples claimed the restaurant at the end of 2023.
“We continued our work for homeless services, but I didn’t have a kitchen to make 300 meals,” says May. “We had this ADU and we thought, ‘Let’s build a kitchen here.’ My pastry table and my Hobart are my best friends.”
After the pair both recovered from cancer, they decided to throw a series of backyard brunches in the garden behind their 1915 craftsman home in Boyle Heights using many of the recipes perfected at Nickel Diner. “We needed to get back on the wild horse,” Trattner says. “They’ve had their rest and here’s the next thing.”
Groups of up to 14 guests can enjoy chicken and waffles, chilaquiles or French toast made with homemade brioche at the weekend brunch pop-ups they’re calling Nickel Diner Kitchen. “I don’t want to say it’s more fun than sitting in a restaurant,” May says. “But it kind of is. It’s a beautiful intimacy sitting at a table with a group of strangers.”
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May and Trattner have hosted everything from wedding proposals to kids’ birthday parties to cooking classes featuring pop-tarts, biscuits and boozy donuts. “I love that we still have an echo in this city and people remember us,” Trattner says. “We went to see Peaches at the Bellwether,” May adds. “She’s crowd-surfing naked and all of a sudden, someone yells ‘Nickel Diner!’ and throws their arms around us!”