Topline:
Although some of Altadena’s restaurants have reopened since the Eaton Fire of January 2025, those whose structures were destroyed face a different set of challenges.
Hurdles: What stands in the way of rebuilding? Costs, logistics and new building requirements.
Why now: At the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire, many restaurants remain uncertain about how and even whether they will reopen.
Read on ... to hear from several Altadena restaurateurs.
Altadena one year after the Eaton Fire finds itself in the space between a memory of what existed before and the unknown of where the town will be once it’s rebuilt.
For restaurants that survived and those that didn’t, the unknown could last a while.
“We’re acknowledging that we’re part of something that is going to be much longer and an extended period of uncertainty,” said Randy Clement, co-owner of West Altadena Wine and Good Neighbor Bar with his wife and partner, April Langford.
With the town still years away from recovery, it’s that uncertainty, as Clement explains, that is particularly hard for the Altadena business community. Having lost its local customer base, businesses no longer can rely on the seasonal ebbs and flows. For businesses whose structures were destroyed in the fire, this uncertainty extends into decisions to rebuild.
Fox’s on Lake Avenue served diner-style dishes like buttermilk pancakes, a winning house veggie burger and homemade pies. It was the kind of place you went to feel at home. (In fact, the building had been converted from a house into a restaurant.) Co-owners Monique King and Paul Rosenbluh, who own Little Beast and Cindy’s in Eagle Rock, remain undecided about rebuilding.
“Resources are thin, and our property’s footprint is small,” King said, “so a costly rebuild for a tiny restaurant carries many considerations. We’re in a holding pattern until we decide what’s best.”
King and others said rebuilding is not necessarily straightforward. Businesses that operated in older structures may need to update layouts to comply with newer regulations. Construction and materials come with high expenses, as does permitting, and a host of other factors. Another question mark is whether a business was adequately insured before the fire.
While businesses agreed the top priority is resettling residents, there are limited financial resources to help commercial structures that were destroyed.
Up the street from Fox’s sat Café de Leche, a coffee shop owned by Anya and Matt Schodorf.
“As painful as the loss was, and still is, we never had any doubt about returning,” Anya Schodorf said.
“Of our multiple locations, this was the only building we owned. It was the majority of our income and a magical place,” Matt Schodorf said.
In November, to much community excitement, the couple shared design renderings of their prospective rebuild, as they ambitiously push toward returning.
“We’re eager to offer a space for the community to gather and heal together,” Anya Schodorf said.
Other businesses' futures are less certain.
On Mariposa Street, half of the small shopping strip known as Mariposa Junction was lost in the fire. The structure housed the beloved Altadena Hardware store and the daytime cafe Amara Kitchen.
Paola Guasp owns Amara, which has another location in Highland Park. The Altadena shop was popular among locals, with its bright welcoming space and tables outside for enjoying a sunny Altadena day.
“After the fire, we immediately transferred staff to our Highland Park location. We’ve been putting our energy there and growing our catering business,” Guasp said.
As for getting back to Altadena, it may be a long road.
“Our landlords are amazing and want to see the space thriving. We’re just so far away from rebuilding, so it’s hard to say what the future looks like,” Guasp said.
Over on Fair Oaks Avenue, Jamie Woolner, co-owner of Pizza of Venice, also lost his business. With a long list of creative pizzas and salads, Pizza of Venice, or “POV” as locals called it, was a classic neighborhood spot.
Woolner’s now-97-year-old grandfather built the structure in 1962, and Woolner owned and ran the business for 12 years.
“The restaurant was finally turning into the dream we’d always envisioned for it, and then the whole place burned down,” Woolner said.
Since the fire, Woolner has reflected on if and how the business could return, but rebuilding is a long and expensive project.
Guillaume Patard-Legendre and his wife and partner, Darcy Ballister, run Altadena’s much-adored Pain Beurre bread popup that draws on Patard-Legendre’s French background and baking expertise.
In February 2024, the couple moved from France to Altadena, where Ballister grew up. That July, Patard-Legendre started Pain Beurre from his in-laws’ ADU.
“The business was dedicated to Altadena,” said Patard-Legendre, who saw a local opportunity for French-style baked goods.
Pain Beurre quickly took off, growing a dedicated fan base. The Eaton Fire destroyed Ballister’s parents’ home, including the ADU where Patard-Legendre and Ballister lived and operated the business.
Without a traditional brick-and-mortar shop, Patard-Legendre was in a unique situation.
In March, World Central Kitchen extended an olive branch, helping him restart, including offering baking space at a local commissary kitchen.
“Their help was such a gift when we had nothing,” he said. “I felt like I was in the movie Pretty Woman at the restaurant supply store. World Central Kitchen has been so supportive. We couldn’t have restarted without them.”
A unanimous sentiment among businesses a year after the fire is an undying love for Altadena and reverence for the community’s resilience amid ongoing tragedy.
“The mass scale of loss is still unbelievable,” said Guasp, of Amara Kitchen.
“People lost their homes, along with 20, 30, 40 years of their lives. Some people lost their lives,” Fox’s King said.
Yet as King and fellow owners’ hopes and dreams for returning show, no one has lost sight of what brought everyone there to begin with. Altadena, King said, is “just a remarkably special place.”
Topline:
LA welder-artist uses the well-loved "L.A." logo to create an “LA Bench” to spark civic pride. It may look like a tribute to the Dodgers, but it's more complicated.
Why it matters: Steve Campos is a second-generation welder born and raised in L.A. who is using his training and education to create work with more artistic designs.
Why now: The Dodgers’ success is making their logos ubiquitous. But the team's success, some Angelenos say, came at the cost of mass displacement after World War II of working class communities where Dodger Stadium how stands.
The backstory: The interlocking letters of the L.A. logo were used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.
What's next: Campos is offering the LA Benches for sale and hopes he can get permission from the Dodgers to install a few at Dodger Stadium.
Go deeper: The ugly, violent clearing of Chavez Ravine.
It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.
“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.
Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.
The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.
“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.
Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.
The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.
“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.
It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.
Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.
“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.
For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.
I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium.
Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.
While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.
“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.
Topline:
A new art installation on the Venice Boardwalk features local and international artists, pop-up evening performances, and projects that explore the themes of childhood and home.
Why it matters: The Venice Boardwalk is usually a daytime playground, but a new art installation and performance pop up aims to breathe new life into the evening scene at the beach.
Why now: Two formerly vacant buildings with spaces facing the Boardwalk have been turned into free art installations after a new owner took over the former Snapchat-owned buildings.
The backstory: Stefan Ashkenazy, founder of the Bombay Beach Biennale, brings some of his favorite collaborators into a new space on the Venice Boardwalk, giving a chance for tourists and locals alike to check out projects from artists including William Attaway, James Ostrer, Greg Haberny, Robin Murez, and more.
Read on ... to find out how you can visit.
The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”
“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”
The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”
The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.
Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.
Venice Boardwalk art pop-ups
The installations are open now and can be seen from the Boardwalk for free 24/7. They will be up for several months and evening performances are ongoing.
All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.
Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.
New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.
“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too. It's beautiful.”
Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.
“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”
While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.
“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”
While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”
Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.
“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”
Topline:
A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles officially opens this weekend.
Why it matters: The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.
What's next: The trail is part of a decades-long effort to preserve the entire 110 acres of Elephant Hill. Read on to learn more.
A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.
The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.
The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.
It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.
"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.
People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.
The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.
Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.
And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.
"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."
A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.
"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.
Here's a preview:
Topline:
San Gabriel Valley residents are rallying today against a battery storage project in the City of Industry. They warn it could bring environmental and health impacts and pave the way for more industrial development, like data centers.
The backstory: City leaders approved the 400-megawatt Marici battery facility in January. But residents in nearby communities say they were not adequately informed and are concerned about safety risks.
What's next: Some local activists have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The rally: Protesters will be at the Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.
A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.
Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.
WHAT: Protest against battery storage facility in the city of Industry
WHERE: Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in neighboring Rowland Heights
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.
“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”
Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.
Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.
A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.
The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.
A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.
Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.
Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.
“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”
