The Brief

Jessica Wang has experienced delay after delay for nearly two years as she tried to open Gu Grocery in Chinatown. Her father, a contractor, had told her it would take nine months.

Instead, she says, there have been issues with city permits, inspectors, inaccurate information, illness and wayward appliance installers which have pushed things back.

The community didn't take nearly as long. In two weeks, 134 donors contributed nearly $12,000 to keep Wang afloat. But money can't solve her problem — she still needs the city's approval to open the doors.

Wang signed the lease at the end of 2023, envisioning a Chinese-Taiwanese grocery store and community hub where seniors could use EBT to buy fresh tofu, where kids from nearby elementary schools could stop by after class, and where her mother, Peggy, could teach neighbors how to make their grandmother's dumplings.

Now, more than two years into a five-year lease, and nearly out of money after paying for permits, buildout, and rent on a space she can't operate, Wang launched a GoFundMe campaign a few weeks ago. The response showed the community believes in Gu Grocery and wants to see it succeed. But she's still waiting for at least seven final inspections by the city before she can open.

The story of Gu

The name "Gu" carries layered meaning: the character 菇 means "mushroom" in Chinese, a traditional symbol of prosperity, while the sound "gu" also means "auntie" in Mandarin — honoring intergenerational caretakers. Wang's mission for the space is to provide a place to purchase Chinese-Taiwanese pantry staples and prepared foods, and to host community workshops.

The communal aspect is central to Wang's vision of social entrepreneurship, not solely focused on profit. In addition to workshops, Gu Grocery plans to accept EBT and offer senior discounts for those on fixed incomes.

"I wanted a space where I could share knowledge and share culture and also just learn from the community," Wang said.

Ultimately, she hopes to convert the store into a worker-owned co-op.

Wang grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and worked as a pastry chef at San Francisco's State Bird Provisions before a pre-diabetic diagnosis at age 29 prompted her return to L.A. She began volunteering with API Forward Movement, a local nonprofit focused on health equity and food access in AAPI communities, and saw firsthand the need during COVID food distributions at L.A. State Historic Park.

Chinatown had lost its last two full-service grocery stores in 2019. Last fall, the neighborhood lost another: Yue Wa Market, a small produce shop that had served residents for 18 years before rising rent and pandemic losses forced it to shut its doors. The closures hit especially hard in a neighborhood where, according to American Community Survey data, half of the residents are low-income and one in five are seniors 65 and older — many of whom rely on walking to shop.

Jessica Wang (center, in black) and her mother Peggy (left, in white and red) smile while serving customers at a farmer's market pop-up for Gu Grocery.

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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Permitting woes

Much of bringing Gu Grocery to reality has been made possible by support from Wang's friends and family. Her father, Willie Wang, serves as her general contractor. When plans were submitted to the city in March 2024, he told her the buildout would take nine months if everything went smoothly.

Instead, she’s experienced delays from all directions, from slow bureaucracy, to issues with contractors. A hood installation contractor rescheduled multiple times, she said, then doubled his price the day before a rescheduled appointment. Drywall contractors said their workers had been detained by ICE and never returned.

The process hasn't just taken time — it's been expensive. One inspector approved a makeup air unit for the kitchen hood system, she said, only to have a senior inspector overturn the decision and order a complete replacement at nearly $6,000. Her father paid out of pocket — even as he was recovering from surgery he had in March 2025 to remove a cancerous lung growth.

"Who would have thought that something an inspector asked us to do would be completely overturned by another inspector?" Wang said. "That's just so wild."

LAist has reached out to the city's Department of Building Services for comment but has not heard back.

The financial toll

Wang estimates she's spent more than $200,000 so far — more than $100,000 on buildout and permits alone, plus a full year of rent on a space she can't operate, equipment, insurance and taxes.

She draws no income from Gu Grocery. To cover personal expenses, she teaches fermentation workshops through her other business, Picklé, though that work has been inconsistent lately. Her health insurance doubled this year. The GoFundMe money, she said, is a "rainy day fund" in case she needs it to pay future bills.

The financial strain has touched her entire family. Her mother, who received a small inheritance when Wang's grandparents died, got scammed late last year trying to grow that money to help with the store. Targeted through online ads, she was convinced by an "investment tutor" based in Taiwan to hand over cash to a stranger in a parking lot.

"I didn't realize this would become part of what it's like to have aging parents in the age of technology," Wang said. "But it's scary how they get targeted."

Black sesame noodles from Gu Grocery's popup menu. Wang uses black sesame for higher nutritional value and plans to offer the dish as one of the prepared foods when the store opens.

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Aunty J

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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Rice balls with house pickles from a Gu Grocery pop-up. Wang has been teaching fermentation and pickling workshops for 15 years and plans to serve pickles alongside all meals when the store opens.

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Aunty J.

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Addressing Chinatown's needs

Once Gu Grocery opens, it won't operate as a full-service market — there won't be a meat counter. Instead, it will function like a corner store with a focus on healthy prepared foods: butter mochi, sesame noodles and daily congee.

"Something that Chinatown has never had was prepared food that is EBT eligible," Wang said.

In 2020, Wang surveyed seniors through API Forward Movement's Tai Chi fitness program to understand their shopping habits following the closure of local grocery stores. Many told her they now ride the bus to Super King on San Fernando Road in Glendale, nearly 5 miles away, for produce deals, or rely on family members to drive them to 99 Ranch in Alhambra. Some grow their own food in gardening plots, Wang said, "but they can't produce everything they need."

Willie Wang (left), Jessica Wang (center), and Peggy Wang (right) pose inside Gu Grocery. The signs display the store's values in both English and Chinese — Willie's reads "body health" and Peggy's reads "mushroom auntie," playing on the dual meaning of "gu."

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Daniel Nguyen

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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The community response

When she launched her Go FundMe in mid-April, she was overwhelmed by the response. "I have a hard time asking for help," said Wang. "So actually receiving help, it's very moving."

The donors range from former pop-up customers and friends to a range of assorted well-wishers — a musician who had her food once at an event, fellow food business owners, farmer's market regulars and even her insurance agent.

"The generosity is beyond my expectations," Wang said. "Some of these people only had my food once. People are showing their support truly in a personal way and really believing in the vision."

The GoFundMe money helps Wang stay "afloat for now," but she's had to rethink her opening strategy. She won't be able to afford full inventory when she opens. Instead, she plans a phased opening: prepared foods only, served through a takeout window, then using revenue to slowly stock shelves with the retail items she originally envisioned.

The community raised more than $14,000 in three weeks. After nearly two years of delays, Wang is still waiting for permits. She hopes to open by Father's Day — a week after her dad's birthday. But she's learned to expect the unexpected.

Many donors sent her direct messages saying simply: "We got this, Jess, we got you."

A large plume of white smoke billowed out of a cold storage facility on Friday afternoon, two days after the fire first ignited at the Boyle Heights warehouse.

Residents near the facility on S. Los Palos Street reported smelling came out of their homes to see the smoke and vehicles driving in that direction turned around as it appeared that the fire reignited shortly before 5 p.m.

Firefighters were at the scene dousing the building.

"Due to an expected change in wind conditions, there was a flare-up inside the structure, which was anticipated by crews on scene," the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement. "More smoke is currently visible in the area of this incident; however, there is no additional hazard. Crews will continue to flow large amounts of water into the building for an extended period of time."

The fire first broke out Wednesday, prompting an hours-long shelter-in-place order due to hazardous materials, including ammonia.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District early Thursday afternoon extended a particle pollution advisory for an area including Boyle Heights, central Los Angeles, and parts of Northeast LA following Wednesday’s fire.

Early monitoring showed particles were generally present at background levels, AQMD said, but for several seconds at a time, they found increased levels of bromine and chlorine.

“Bromine and chlorine are typically found at trace levels during structural fires and the levels seen were below short-term health-based exposure thresholds,” AQMD said. “Concentrations below this level are not expected to cause adverse health effects. No significant levels of air toxic metals were seen.”

SEATTLE — For days, questions about the health of star winger Christian Pulisic's left calf had loomed large over the U.S. men's national soccer team: After being kicked in the leg during last week's Paraguay game, would he be available in the pivotal second U.S. game of the FIFA World Cup?

In the end, it didn't matter.

The U.S. dominated Friday's match against Australia, winning 2-0 even as Pulisic, who was ultimately deemed unavailable before kickoff, watched his teammates from the sidelines.

The scoring started early when American striker Folarin Balogun streaked down the left side of the field and powered a pass into the penalty area, where Australian defender Cameron Burgess booted it into his net for an own goal in the 11th minute.

"I want to be dangerous. I want to create opportunities. And it might not always be myself that scores, but if I can force an error that gives us the lead, for me that's like a goal as well," Balogun said. "It was a special start to the game to give us the momentum, and then I think we carried it out."

The U.S. added a second goal when defender Alex Freeman knocked in a header just before halftime. The chippy match resulted in seven total yellow cards, three for the U.S. on defenders Antonee Robinson and Chris Richards and Balogun.

After the game, U.S. head coach Mauricio Pochettino praised his team and their approach. "We build the victory in our attitude," he said.

The win guarantees that the U.S. will advance to the knockout stage of the tournament, and it puts the Americans in the driver's seat to win Group D. That would set up the team for a more advantageous path through the knockout round, which begins Sunday, June 28.

Cristian Volpato #20 of Australia and Weston McKennie #8 of the United States battle for the ball during the team's World Cup Group D match on Friday in Seattle.

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About 90 minutes before kickoff, Pochettino told Fox that Pulisic would be unavailable due to the nagging left calf injury suffered last Friday. "It is hoped, as soon as possible, [that he] can be ready to be selected again to be part of the team," Pochettino said.

In his place, forward Ricardo Pepi made the start on the left side. For Freeman, his first career World Cup goal was the latest step in a remarkable trajectory for a 21-year-old player who made his first appearance for the U.S. national team just over a year ago. 

It was unclear whether Pulisic would be available for the third and final U.S. group stage game, a match against Turkey set for next Thursday.

Whether that game will matter depends on the outcome of Friday night's Turkey-Paraguay matchup; if Turkey draws or loses, the U.S. is guaranteed the top spot. If Turkey wins, that sets up next week's head-to-head game to determine the group winner.

Turkey, whose roster features stars like Arda Güler of Real Madrid and Kenan Yıldız of Juventus, had been considered by some analysts to be the strongest team in the group.

The U.S. victory over Australia was the second win in the group stage — the first time the American men have done that in a World Cup since 1930.
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Bernard Brown grew up going to parties all around Los Angeles. Maybe a little before he was supposed to.

“I won't say my age. I don't wanna get nobody in trouble,” he joked. “But I went to clubs like The Catch — The Catch One — and The Study on Hollywood and Western and places like that that are no longer with us.”

Brown went on to become a contemporary dancer and choreographer, and he remembers watching those dancers, and the tenderness they had for each other. He told LAist that was exactly what informed his new art installation and dance performance, “Sissies: Something Perfect Between Ourselves,” at the Pieter Performance Space this Juneteenth weekend.

“ I thought a lot about how intergenerational learning was starting to slip away, and what does it mean to learn how to be a Black queer person?” Brown said. “Where are those spaces, and how did I learn how to be this way? And so making this work has been about this labor, this love, this intergenerational learning, and also community.”

What to expect

“Sissies” has two components: an installation on view Friday through Sunday, and a dance performance featuring some of L.A.’s most prominent dancers and voguers this Saturday night at 8:30 p.m.

Rosalie Tucker, director of Pieter Performance Space, said this will look a little different from other dance performances you may have been to.

“The invitation to everyone who is a guest in the show, who has bought a ticket is: Let it go,” she said. “Let yourself be in the club. React. You don't have to be quiet. This isn't a silent setting. This is not a traditional theater setting, and that is intentional.”

That’ll culminate after the performance, when the audience will also be invited to join the dancefloor.

If you can’t make it to the performance, the installation will also be on view in the afternoon throughout Juneteenth weekend. Brown told LAist he also hopes to find a permanent home for the archives and exhibits he’s amassed.

The inspiration behind ‘Sissies’

Normally, projects of this kind involve archival research, and that’s certainly a big part of the work. But for Brown, who was actually there at clubs watching vogue practitioners work the dancefloor, the research process looks a little different.

Brown calls the work “autoethnographic” — that’s to say, a big part of what you’ll see is based on his own experiences watching others over the decades.

“ We're talking about vogue, all of the elements: hand performance, floor performance, catwalk, duck walk,” Brown said. “All of those things appear in the work, but it's based on the truth, uh, and the authenticity of our people.”

The themes in Brown’s work resonated with Tucker, especially in this political moment.

“What we're seeing is our histories being not just erased, but violently erased, and, uh, excluded and lied about,” she said. “So we really have, I think, a responsibility to the future, to ourselves, to claim the truth of, this is what happened then, this is what's happening now.”

Brown’s collaborators

Los Angeles has a long history of queer Black underground clubs and events, one that continues to this day in underground parties and warehouse shows.

“ Bernard has built this with the people who are the Black underground in Los Angeles as well, so it's not just like a theoretical thing,” Tucker said.

Many of Brown’s dancers have performed with people like Beyoncé, but they’re also artists doing their own thing. The score for the show is by DJ DeFacto X, a co-founder of Black Bass Collective, a staple of L.A.’s warehouse scene.

“They are creating their own work,” Brown said. “They are making spaces where people congregate, and they're doing the Lord's work in that regard, finding their way to the movement of our queer ancestors.”

Though Brown won’t be performing in the show, he said he’s moved when he sees younger people go through the same movements as the voguers and other dancers he used to see in clubs.

“I am filled with joy — literal joy — and sometimes tears at how beautiful it is to see Black queer men being together intimately, folding into each other their individual kikis and lalas that happen during performance, the authenticity of their visceral connection to each other,” he said.

LOS ANGELES — James Burrows, who helped create volumes of laughter as director of more than a thousand episodes of such classic television comedies as "Cheers," "Taxi," "Friends" and "Will and Grace," died Friday. He was 85.

His family confirmed his death in a statement to People, saying he "passed away peacefully today surrounded by his family." No location or cause of death was provided.

Burrows spent his career behind the camera specializing in situation comedies. Few viewers recognized him or knew his name, other than to see it flash quickly on the screen in the opening credits. But they knew his work.

Burrows got his start in television relatively late at age 35 in 1974, directing episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Bob Newhart Show," and "Laverne & Shirley."

He co-created "Cheers," directing 243 of the 273 episodes, as well as all 246 episodes of "Will and Grace."

He also helmed multiple episodes of such hits as "Frasier," "Friends" and "Mike & Molly," and the pilots of "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory."

"When I direct a television show, I try to reach that sweet spot where the best script meets the best performance and the best chemistry between performers," Burrows wrote in his 2022 memoir "Directed by James Burrows." "Hitting that exact moment, where these factors land in combination, results in the sweetest and most enduring laugh."

His family said, "Burrows understood that great comedy was never simply about laughter. It was about humanity, connection, and truth. That understanding became the foundation of a career that forever changed television.

"But beyond his remarkable achievements, Burrows will be remembered for something even greater: his kindness, generosity, and unwavering belief in the people around him. He possessed a rare ability to make everyone better and was known for remembering every person he met by name, making colleagues at every level feel seen, valued, and appreciated," the family statement said.

Born James Edward Burrows on Dec. 30, 1940, in Los Angeles, he moved to New York when he was 5 years old. He spent five years in the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus until his voice started to change. He attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art.

His father was writer, director and producer Abe Burrows, whose Broadway hits included "Guys and Dolls" and "Can-Can." The elder Burrows also mentored Larry Gelbart, future creator and producer of the TV show "M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H."

The younger Burrows spent hours of his youth in theaters and studios watching his father work, dining with him at such famed New York haunts as Sardi's and Gallagher's and meeting celebrities who attended his father's New Year's Eve parties.

After earning a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, Burrows attended the graduate program of the Yale School of Drama, where his classmates included actor-comedian Robert Klein, playwright John Guare and film director John Badham.

At Yale, he was required to take directing classes and he got hooked.

Burrows' first sitcom experience was as Burl Ives' dialogue coach on "O.K. Crackerby!" which was directed by his father and ran for one season on ABC in 1965.

From there, he was an assistant on "The Patty Duke Show." He moved back to New York and worked for Broadway producers Lee Guber, Frank Ford and Shelly Gross. He first met actor Moore while working on the Broadway production of "Holly Golightly," an adaptation of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that was directed by his father.

Burrows eventually worked as a stage manager for various road productions, where he met such actors as Hugh O'Brien, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Julie Harris.

By 1974, after working in dinner theater and summer stock, he turned on his television and saw Moore's eponymous TV show. He wrote her a letter asking if there was any opening "small or smaller" at her production company that he could fill, according to his memoir.

Moore's husband and business partner, Grant Tinker, invited Burrows to Los Angeles to direct an episode of the comedy. He apprenticed for MTM Enterprises, which had four sitcoms on the air at the same time.

Burrows cited his theater background for learning how to give actors direction and block out scenes. He's credited for being one of the first sitcom directors to increase the typical multi-camera television shoot from three to four cameras.

The common thread between Burrows' shows were the bonds between friends and unrelated families, whether it was the motley crew of regulars meeting at the bar in "Cheers" or the drivers working toward a better life in "Taxi" or the 20-somethings sharing the same apartment building in "Friends."

"The best sitcoms transcend the screen and reach out and grab the audience by the throat and by the heart," Burrows wrote in his memoir.

He relished discovering new acting talent while directing more than 75 pilots that were picked up as series.

"Having directed over a thousand shows means that almost any night you can turn on your television or go online and find a show that I directed. I'm very proud of that," he wrote in his memoir.

In 2019, Burrows was an executive producer on live productions of "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons" with famous actors re-creating episodes of those 1970s comedies.

Burrows was married in 1997 to Debbie Easton, whom he met when she worked as a hairstylist on "Frasier." Daughters Kat Schatzow, Ellie Gluck and Maggie Burrows, who followed her father into directing, are from his first marriage to Linda Solomon, who died in 2004. His stepdaughter Paris is from his wife's previous marriage. He has a sister, Laurie Burrows Grad, and seven grandchildren.
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