After 101 years, the doors are closer to the Pantry Cafe of Los Angeles

The city center of Los Angeles has lost another emblematic restaurant with the closure of the original Pantry Cafe, which served hot coffee, burgers and breakfast sets since 1924.

The news of the planned closure has attracted rapid affairs while customers were looking for a farewell meal at the restaurant at the corner of the 9th and South Figueroa streets.

The component itself was bitter. Once the doors are closed, the 25 remaining dinner workers gathered inside, received manila envelopes containing their final controls and, with the support of their union, refused to leave.

“It is still open from their point of view,” said Kurt Petersen, co -president of the local unit unit here 11 who, according to Petersen, had represented the restaurant workers for decades. “They told the direction that they wanted them to change their mind.”

The restaurant built its heritage in Los Angeles not on elegant prices (it had a mediocre note of 3.7 on Yelp) but on its 24 -hour service, which makes it a paradise for night oils and the first elevators.

The restaurant had survived past threats. He dodged a highway project in the 1950s, moving his location to make way for a ramp ramp. Former mayor Richard Riordan took over the restaurant in 1981 as part of a larger land agreement.

“When I fell in love with the pantry, I was at breakfast, drinking coffee and I had a book I read,” said Riordan in The Times. “I was very relaxed and the server came and said,” If you want to read, the library is 5th and hope “. I fell in love at that time.

But the isolation policies of the COVID-19 pandemic gave a blow, forcing the restaurant to limit its hours. Despite $ 1.7 million in federal loans (all except $ 500,000 forgave) to preserve 82 jobs in the restaurant, workers said only about two dozen employees remained by Sunday.

The files of the Los Angeles court show that a project for collective appeal was submitted in April 2023 on behalf of the workers of the pantry alleging unpaid wages for overtime, rest and meal breaks. Two weeks later, Riordan died. The salary case has remained in settlement talks as recently as February, according to the documents filed.

The property of the restaurant was transferred to Riordan’s Trust, who said he had to sell the active to support his philanthropic efforts. The union tried to negotiate conditions which would force any new owner to honor the existing contract. This did not happen and the union filed a grievance with the National Council for Labor Relations.

Lawyer Carl McKinzie, managing director of the company of the trust who operates the pantry, refused to comment on Sunday. He referred a journalist to a long prepared statement given to the media earlier in the week saying that sales talks have been continuing since last summer.

After closing the restaurant doors on Sunday, a trust representative arrived and tried to distribute envelopes containing final pay checks. When workers did not intensify to take them, she put them on a table.

“They left the envelope on the table and left out,” said a table server that only gave his first name, Alex. He said he had been employed at dinner 24 years old. “No thanks. She doesn’t say anything.

When the workers tried to stay behind, the management called the Los Angeles police and the police finally arrived to tell the employees that they faced accusations of intrusion if they had remained. The pantry workers left without incident, but Petersen of the union remained and received a quote, said a union representative.

Alex was not sure of what could happen next week, other than that, the union would have people in front with signs and signs. The union officials said they did not know if there was already a new owner in the wings.

The pantry’s online control service remained operational on Sunday. A Times journalist was able to take an order to take away for French toast on Wednesday.