The Brief

Many who visit Inglewood might only get a snapshot of the city. Maybe they caught a show at the Kia Forum (formally the Great Western) such as Prince’s legendary 30-day residence there in 2011 or took in a Rams game at nearby SoFi Stadium. But what if between spectator events and the occasional stop at Randy’s Donuts, you had no other exposure to the Wood?

That’d be a shame because the city has an enviable cultural legacy that spans the Showtime Lakers-era decades ago to its present-day status as a hub for young creatives as captured on the HBO series Insecure (The Dunes apartment, never forget):

This rich and plentiful history in a city where Black and Latino residents combined make up nearly 90% of the population is actualized in a food scene with different culinary flourishes.

This is Cheap Fast Eats Inglewood.

Wings 2 Go

Customers order inside Wings2go in Inglewood.

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We can’t take full credit for this find. That honor goes to former contributor Cesar Hernandez, who’s currently working as the assistant restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. While we miss Cesar's contributions, we thought what better way to honor him than to do a callback on one of our favorite picks of his.

What is it about the concept of a wing shop in L.A. that keeps it from carrying the same culinary importance as it does in other cities like Atlanta?

Wings 2 Go is a small but mighty wing shop that sits in a tiny strip mall along Crenshaw Boulevard, attracting wings fanatics from far and wide looking to get a fiery bite. The menu at Wings isn’t huge by most standards but it still manages to pack a punch when it comes to offering a variety of tastes and flavors. Opt for the six-piece ATL Special (hot with lemon pepper seasoning). We’ve developed a taste for lemon pepper-style wings since we heard about them from Donald Glover’s television series Atlanta. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it.

Upon the first transformative bite of a wing, suddenly you’re Jordan after clinching his first NBA finals win in 1991, celebrating in ecstasy. The sticky, crunch-fried wing is drenched in the perfect amount of sauce and then sprinkled with galactic bits of salty-citrusy lemon pepper seasoning that will leave your lips tingling. If you’re looking to broaden your flavor horizons, there’s also a jerk BBQ, aji verde, and Cajun rub as sauce selections.

Whichever fiery selections you choose, wash it down with lemonade or sweet tea, or go for a hole-in-one with an Arnold Palmer to quench your thirst, as you’ll no doubt need it.

Wings 2 Go sits in a strip mall in Inglewood.

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Country Style Jamaican Restaurant

The goat curry at Country Style Jamaican Restaurant falls off the bone.

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Our love for Jamaican-style take-out restaurants is well documented, so it’s not surprising we have had a well-established place in our heart for a while now for the casual walk-up counter-establishment.

The welcoming and joyous atmosphere is infectious as you enter the walk-up counter inside. The walls are painted the same dark green of the Jamaican flag. Images of Black luminaries are featured next to maxims extolling a virtue-filled life.

To get the most meal for your buck, we recommend going with any one of the mini plate options. Our personal favorite is the curried goat. Stewed bone-in pieces of goat have been cooked in a dark yellow curry full of aromatic spices. The chunks of meat are spicy, juicy and fatty and fall off the bone onto a bed of rice and beans that’s also saturated in the curry flavoring.

Aromas hit you as soon as you enter Country Style Jamaican Restaurant.

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Carnitas El Artista

Carnitas El Artista uses nearly every part of the pig to make savory carnitas.

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While it might be easy to pledge one’s allegiance to the culinary wonder that is carnitas, how often do you take it upon yourself to dive deep into the different parts of the pig? Each contains its own unique textures that manage to delight with every helping.

Carnitas El Artista is where such dreams can come true as a result of the hard work of owner Gustavo Chavez and his family. The name El Artista came from Chavez’s grandfather who used to take the bus from Wilmington to visit the restaurant. The elder Chavez would be surprised when everyone around town knew his grandson and would joke that the younger Chavez was "El Artista” — or movie star.

Chavez and his family originate from Michoacán, the Mexican state known as the birthplace of carnitas, which are traditionally cooked in large copper pots called cazos.

Carnitas El Artista got its origins as a backyard business.

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Carnitas El Artista sells their offerings by the pound with the choice of different parts that include carnitas (pork shoulder), costillas (ribs), lengua (tongue), buche (stomach), cueritos (skin) or a mix of everything.

Chavez and his wife started their business in 2015 selling by the pound out of their backyard in nearby Hawthorne before moving into street vending and finally opening their restaurant in 2019.

While carnitas by the pound is a very good deal at $15 to $16, if you are looking to feed an army of family members on a Sunday afternoon, it might be a lot for a casual stop.

Tacos de carnitas are the best option in that case. Opt for the mix containing all the different parts of the pork. That manages to pack all the flavor and texture of each aspect of the protein, providing for an extremely nuanced bite containing equal amounts of the sticky, fatty and chewy all combined. Serve the meat on a fresh tortilla with crisp-tasting salsa topped with thin shards of red onion for the proper amount of acidity that cuts the richness of the pork. It’s a showtime taco for the masses if there ever was one.

Carnitas El Artista's owner Gustavo Chavez and his son, Kevin (left).

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Woody’s Bar-B-Que

The "Inflation Fighter" (3x) lunch special at Woody’s Bar-B-Que.

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If you’ve spent any time in Inglewood, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the Woody’s Bar-B-Que location on Market Street. It's not uncommon for lines to wrap around the small business, spilling out into the moderately sized parking lot.

It’s never not a joyous occasion at Woody’s as you wait in line to place your order at the walk-up window where speakers overhead play booming deep cuts from 80’s and 90’s R&B or Madlib’s Shades of Blue, helping set the mood.

Our favorite aspect of Woody’s is their lunch special menu which feels like you are going back in time to when the restaurant opened in 1975. Items such as Inflation Fighter (Pork Rib Tips & 1/2 Chicken Link), Business Man’s Lunch (2 Ribs & 1/2 Chicken Link), and Lady’s Lunch (Chopped Beef & 1 Chicken Link) are a few of the standouts on the menu. All cost $8.95 (tax and tip excluded). With each dish, diners have their choice of signature sauce (mild, hot, or mixed) that resembles a BBQ sauce but somehow manages to feel more special because it’s homemade.

All plates come in a brown paper bag, giving the vibe of the school lunch that your mom used to pack. Along with the small entree, you’ll be served two slices of white bread packaged neatly in a small plastic bag and a small container of a side of your choice. Have your pick of potato salad, mac and cheese, macaroni salad, baked beans or cole slaw.

Patrons wait for their food outside of Woody’s Bar-B-Que.

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El Capitalino

Quesadilla fritas from El Capitalino MX food truck.

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If you ask anyone who grew up in a Latino household or in anyplace where tortillas are readily available, the quesadilla holds a special place in their hearts. An easy after-school snack or — maybe with the addition of meat and/or avocado — a filling lunch. Either properly crisped over a hot comal from the stove or microwaved for a short period of time, you can’t get a more homey feel than melted cheese between a flour tortilla.

An aside: what if the quesadillas from your youth were, in fact, a gateway into a large quesadilla universe that’s actually larger than what you might have originally considered? El Capitalino achieves just that. Owner Ivan Gomez, who also owns Birreira Gomez (a fleet of trucks specializing in birria de res, found throughout South Bay and the Westside), was inspired by how he saw quesadillas prepared during a trip to Mexico City and also by his mother and grandmother who grew up making the meal.

Each of the thick corn tortillas is made by hand, usually by Ivan’s mom, Norma Ramirez. She takes the raw masa and forms it into a flat disk, then stuffs it with cheese. The tortilla is then folded and fried in oil.

After it’s done cooking, the quesadilla is removed, pulled apart and packed with a filling of your choice, which could be chicken tinga, hongos (mushrooms), rajas con queso (roasted roasted poblano peppers with cheese), carne asada or chicharron prensado. Then it’s fried with salsa made from Guajillo chili and stuffed with lettuce and cream. No matter what the filling is, you'll get a unique griddled cheesiness accented by expertly-flavored fillings that make for one of the best-tasting quesadillas that we’ve ever experienced.

Norma Ramirez presses masa into a quesadilla inside of the El Capitalino MX food truck.

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An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.

The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.

It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.

These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.

Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.

State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.

The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.

Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.

“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with  California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.

What led to the patient deaths?

In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.

The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.

When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.

Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.

The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.

She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.

The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.

In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.

In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.

Who owns Brier Oak?

Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.

Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.

In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.

The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.

The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..

The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.

Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.

A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.

Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.

It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:

Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm?

Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.

How bad is it?

California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.

As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.

Can’t they just make snow?

They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”

But there’s a silver lining!

The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.

Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.

What’s the snow outlook?

SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.

If you go to Big Bear: 

• If you plan to hit the slopes, get on it early, when the snow is at its best given the warm conditions. 
• No snow? There’s more to do than ski and snowboard. Check this list of winter fun events.  
• Worried about traffic? Consider going up earlier in the week. If you can’t do that, consider taking Highway 18 through Lucerne Valley. It’s a longer route if you’re coming from L.A., but less traveled, and less likely to make you car sick (fewer tight curves). 

The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.

Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.

The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.

A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.

Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.

This report is different from others

It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”

It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.

The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.

Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.