The Brief

Los Angeles has seen several notable restaurant closures in the past few weeks.

Hart House, the vegan fast food chain owned by comedian Kevin Hart, closed all four locations. Pink Taco, located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, abruptly shuttered its doors after 12 years. Otoño, a well-reviewed Spanish-inspired restaurant in Highland Park is now closed. Acclaimed Gorilla Pies in Valley Village has gone on hiatus to “reimagine how we can better serve you.”

Eater L.A has kept a running total of this year’s closures, and it’s 75 so far. Compared to last year’s 65 eateries that closed over the entire year — it’s clear that it’s grim out there.

To get a better picture of the current situation, we reached out to three business owners: Nicole Rucker, owner of Fat & Flour in DTLA and Culver City; Chef Teresa Montaño of the now-shuttered Otoño; and Alex Koons, of Hot Tongue Pizza in Silver Lake, who made the decision last year to add meat to his vegan pizzeria menu with hopes of attracting a larger customer base. All three have been vocal regarding the hardships they’ve faced recently.

(Note: these conversations have been edited for clarity and length).

What’s the situation? 

Nicole Rucker, owner of Fat & Flour

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Alan Gastelum

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Courtesy Fat & Flour

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Nicole Rucker:

“This summer, we experienced a drop in our business that started on June 1st, which came after we had recorded high sales in 2023.

The beginning of the year, it's normally a little bit slower, and then we look to summer for when tourism comes to L.A. [But] this summer, it took a sharp drop down and just kept getting worse. In August, we saw the worst sales that we've seen since 2021.

August was worse than July, and July was worse than June. And in total, it's about a 30 to 40 percent drop. And then the heat wave that came was the nail in the coffin for a lot of people. That was brutalizing."

Teresa Montano:

“A significant part of it is just how much the cost of everything, the cost of doing business in Los Angeles, has gone up. And after COVID-19, so many things changed.

There were just these compounding factors that kept hitting us. We closed for about 15 months during COVID-19. In that time, we did a little market thing, but ultimately, dinner service was down for 15 months, which was nuts.

One of the major things that I noticed was that dining habits changed. People were still scared to come out, so they decided to change their lifestyle and start cooking at home.

The other factor is that third-party delivery apps made a killing during COVID-19 because all the restaurants were down. These parasitic apps came in and stole half the market.

A lot of people have got used to that. And that has become their dining, instead of going out to restaurants. When we reopened the first year, we had an incredible year, of course, because people were excited that we were back.

But I think after that initial pop dissipated, we were in the boat with everyone else."

Alex Koons:

Alex Koons of Hot Tongue in Silver Lake

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Miriam Brummel

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“It just seemed the summer was so dead. It was scary. My wife had dipped into her funds to pay for payroll multiple times.

I've been in pizza for almost 15 years, and it feels like I've had to work five times harder for everything these last couple of years.

I'm not saying the restaurant industry was easier before this, but just seeing and hearing about all the struggles, seeing Gorilla Pies close their doors, and other friends, it was just me saying, ‘If we didn't make this decision, [about adding meat] we would have been closed. There has to be a bigger play. And opening up to a bigger demographic.

I think my ego was quite big as a pizza maker. Bread has always been the defining factor that I find to be important in pizza, and it's something that I'm very good at. I thought that would be enough to get people who might not necessarily eat vegan food in the door. But it's so funny, living in a bubble or having a perspective of only your own — you don't realize that.”

What can be done? 

Nicole Rucker:

“I would like to see a small business tax plan that really takes care of small businesses. I would like to see money become available to small businesses that are not from online bank sources that charge exorbitant interest rates. Because something that changed with the pandemic is that it is more and more difficult for truly small businesses.

And by that, businesses who do under a million dollars in sales. It's very difficult for people like me to get money these days from places that aren't charging 17 to 20% interest.

But the other thing is people are scared because there's so much messaging about the economy being bad. And we're all trying to save where we can, and groceries are expensive, but if we do care about the health of small businesses within our communities, then we have to support the places that matter to us.

Because following three months of really terrible sales, that’s when you start to see doors closing. If you're lucky, you have three months of backup in the bank. That would be really great to have, but we just used it all on summer 2024. It's gone now for most people. So a lot more places are going to close before the end of the year because it's so hard to navigate."

Teresa Montaño:

Chef Teresa Montano stands inside of her now-shuttered Otoño restaurant in Highland Park

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Courtesy Otoño

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“It's really just looking at the policy and getting rid of all those old systems, lowering the prices of things and stopping gouging small businesses. We're paying the taxes and employing people, which are way too high in California. There's just so much red tape. And then you open, and there's even more. There's even more. It's just like regulation after regulation.

Thank God we dodged the junk fee bill [a bill to remove extra fees from bills that ultimately exempted restaurants]. Maybe it's a good intention, but it makes doing business harder. And small businesses are leaving California, but huge businesses are also leaving, so that should be an eye-opener to the lawmakers.”

Alex Koons:

"There is no quick fix to this problem. I bang my head against the wall daily, trying to figure out what will hit and stick.

There needs to be something more extreme than just running promotions or trying to pay for a PR agency or get people or influencers in here.

Again, pride and ego are something that I'm dealing with personally, but I don't want to live in a world where I have to have an influencer come into my establishment to tell everybody that my food is great.

And that seems like that's the world we're living in. They come in, and fundamentally nothing changes from the time they were in and the time they were before. You feel it's almost like being trapped in a way. And maybe I need to just swallow that.

But I have a fair amount of friends who haven't felt any pain. And they're doing very well. They maintain a constant flow of social media attention or being on lists and stuff, and I know how helpful that is to business, especially in Los Angeles.

I talk about cutting through the noise. It's very important to stay on people's radar. And that's a constant battle, too with Hot Tongue. So many people don't know about us in our own neighborhood, and trying to combat that, I've done everything.

We're not priced at the cheapest, but also we pride ourselves on the grain that we use, the technique that we use, the equipment that we use, how much we pay people.

It's hard to convey to a customer, to sit down and have that conversation with them a lot of times. It feels like they just want their food on time and want us not to break the bank.”

The priority deadline for California students to apply for federal and state-based financial aid is March 2. And as students hustle to meet this deadline, the state is also encouraging them to claim their CalKIDS scholarship—up to $1,500 that can be used to pay for college or a career training program.

Typically, scholarship applications involve writing essays, meeting GPA requirements and maybe even securing letters of recommendation in a competition for limited funds.

But the CalKIDS scholarship requires none of that, said Noah Lightman, assistant deputy director at ScholarShare Investment Board, which oversees the program.

About 60% of California’s public school students are eligible for the scholarship, and it’s non-competitive. Students are entitled to the money by state law, Lightman said — they just have to claim it.

CalKIDS launched in 2022. To date, about 850,000 California students have claimed their scholarships.

Lightman pointed to research showing that children with even a modest amount of money set aside for higher education are three times more likely to attend college—and four times more likely to graduate college than children who don’t have any savings.

He knows from personal experience, having juggled coursework, extracurriculars, standardized tests and college applications while figuring out how he’d pay for college. Knowing there’s easy-to-access money “can be life-changing,” he added.

How are the CalKIDS scholarship amounts determined? And how do I claim it?

Students in second grade and up who are eligible for a CalKIDS scholarship will get at least $500.

The state determines eligibility based on a variety of factors, including family income and whether the student is learning English as a second language. If a student is unhoused or fostered, they will receive an additional $500. Eligible students who are unhoused and fostered will receive $1,500.

Lightman encourages everyone to check, though.

To claim their scholarships, Lightman said, students just need their 10-digit Statewide Student Identifier, which is assigned to them at school. (If you don’t know what yours is, ask your teacher or counselor.) Once they have their SSID, students or their parents can go to the CalKIDS website, plug in that number, along with their birthdate and county where they attend school, and readily find out if they are eligible and, if so, for what amount.

Students do not need a Social Security number to access these funds.

The process takes about five minutes or less, said Julio Hernandez, a college and career administrative coordinator for Los Angeles Unified School District. Counseling teams across the district have been instructed to tell students about CalKIDS, Hernandez added. He’s also used the website to secure a $500 scholarship for his son. Once he graduates, Hernandez’s son will be able to use that money to help cover tuition or other higher ed expenses.

According to CalKIDS, students have used their scholarships to pay for everything from books to housing bills.

Students can start using their CalKIDS funds as young as 17, and they don’t have to spend it while they’re undergraduates. If they would like to hold on to that money till grad school, they may, Lightman said—but the money must be spent by the time they turn 26. Currently, he added, nearly 150,000 students are using CalKIDS to help pay for college.

What might keep students from claiming their scholarship?

At Long Beach Unified, counselors help students and parents navigate the claim process.

Counselors at the district also describe the process as quick and straightforward. But, Candyce Simpson, a counselor at Jordan High School, noted in an emailed statement to LAist that students and their parents are often “bombarded with emails about college and the cost of college.”

“There are predatory programs that spam our kids about scholarships, if you pay a fee,” she added. “As counselors, we constantly remind our students and families that if they ask for a credit card, they should delete the email immediately. These programs are very savvy, and they look very legitimate.”

Messages from CalKIDS may get “buried,” Simpson said. “Students know FAFSA and Studentaid.gov; we need to add CalKIDS to our narratives more intentionally.”

Hey, new parents! There is also a CalKIDS scholarship for babies 

Every baby born in California on or after July 1, 2022 is also eligible for a separate CalKIDS scholarship—regardless of their family income.

These scholarships start at $100. To access them, parents need their child’s 13-digit local registration number, which can be found on their birth certificate. If families choose to link this money with the state's official college savings program, ScholarShare 529, CalKIDS will add another $50 to their account.

The scholarship, though small in comparison to escalating college costs, “serves as a conversation starter,” Lightman said, “helping families look at college savings in general.”

Community members have organized an event called “Disneyland Raza Invasion” outside the theme parks to take place the same day as the planned "MAGA Takeover" at Disneyland in Anaheim tomorrow. Here’s what to know about the dueling events.

Disney is not involved in the events. The two are solely organized by outside groups with no direct affiliation with the amusement park, such as “Dapper Dan Day” and “Bats Day.”

Park officials declined to respond to LAist’s requests for comment.

Organizers with 805 Patriots say “Patriots in the Park” is a “peaceful” event for “family-oriented” conservatives to enjoy a day at the park. They’re encouraging attendees to show support for the president by wearing attire permitted by Disneyland, such as red hats, shirts and accessories.

Organizers say the “MAGA Takeover” meet-up is strictly recreational and participants should enjoy the park as regular visitors, without seeking attention or creating disruptions.

“It is NOT a march, protest, demonstration or political action. Attendees will enter the park as everyday guests and are expected to follow all Disneyland guidelines,” according to a statement from 805 Patriots.

Signs, flags or any form of disruptive conduct are prohibited, according to Disneyland’s rules of entry.

The Brown Berets of California, a Chicano community organization, is also planning a “Disneyland Raza Invasion” outside of the main park entrance on Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m.

Organizers on social media said the “peaceful, united presence” is to “stand against hate and intimidation.” The group speaks out against the Trump administration’s policies, including immigration raids.

Every year, a South Bay ice cream gives kids the opportunity to turn their ideas into sweet, sweet frozen reality.

Over the years Kansha Creamery’s kids’ flavor contest has yielded all kinds of creations, some featuring hibiscus, others with strawberry lemonade or kinako (roasted soybean powder) — and 2026 marks the competition's 10th anniversary.

The shop is in a strip mall off Western Avenue on the border of Gardena and Torrance, and owned and operated by siblings James Marumoto and Elaine Marumoto-Perez. Their neighbors include a yakitori spot, a ramen shop and a dentist.

The kids flavor contest is a reflection of the owners’ vision for their shop, a space shaped by the people in their neighborhood.

“We were kind of just open to just trying anything,” Elaine said of their first contest in 2015. “We really wanted to just kind of be a part of the community. So it was a good way to do that.”

Putting the community into ice cream

As kids, James and Elaine said they entered Mitsuwa — then Yaohan— grocery store’s annual Mother and Father’s Day drawing contests.

They looked forward to seeing their art displayed in-store and their parents were excited about the free gift card.

Kansha’s contest invites kids 12 and under to submit a drawing of their flavors. James and Elaine weigh the entries’ art, story and likelihood the idea will yield tasty ice cream.

One of the winners in 2023 was Wafu-Wahoo Japanese Memory by Kairi Kitagawa. The flavor is so popular, Kansha’s made it on-demand for wedding orders. “ It's like super cool, the fact that they're like making my ice cream [at] special events,” Kairi said. “I feel, like, really happy about that.”

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Mariana Dale

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Kairi, now 15 (back left) said he was inspired by a summer trip to Japan where he toured a mochi factory. His sister Sayana, pictured here with his mom, won the kid’s flavor contest in 2018 with Love Love Strawberry Heart.

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Korra entered the contest several times before winning with Winter Chip in 2024. “I really [like] mint chip and I thought about winter,” she said. “I thought of snow.. and the marshmallows were like the same colors.”

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Korra's mom, Winnie, estimated she bought more than 30 pints of the flavor to share with family and friends.

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Elaine remembered a submission from a few years ago that proposed an ice cream flavored like rain on pavement.

“That is so beautiful and so artistic, but we cannot make that flavor,” she said.

Other times, the contest doesn’t align with the right season for a particular ingredient.

Once they select the winners, James is responsible for making them a reality.

“It's more stressful than like a regular day,” James said. “Because I don't want to let the kid down. I also don't wanna let the parents down.”

Opening a South Bay ice cream shop 

Before James and Elaine opened Kansha in 2015 they rotated between part-time jobs. Elaine nannied and taught piano. Both worked at local restaurants.

They donated part of what they made to charity, but wanted to do more.

“Kansha means gratitude in Japanese,” Elaine said. “We kind of wanted to embody that in our business practices.”

James and Elaine way back when.

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They chose an ice cream shop, in part, because they wouldn’t need additional employees and they said there were few options for frozen treats in the South Bay at the time.

James taught himself to make ice cream from books and emails with other makers. Early flavor experiments included mustard and straw.

The organic ice cream base for every flavor is from Northern California’s Straus Family Creamery. Some of the store's best-known flavors, including matcha, draw on their Japanese heritage and the area’s Asian diaspora.

The flavors rotate frequently, but the Mr. Universal — vanilla ice cream with caramel and oatmeal cookies — is always on the menu.

The flavors rotate frequently, but the Mr. Universal— vanilla ice cream with caramel and oatmeal cookies— is always on the menu.

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It represents “the humble and the rich,” James said. “Anyone can enjoy it.”

The business survived the pandemic by switching from in-store scoops to pints-to-go.

“It's kind of a miracle,” Elaine said. “We believe in God and so we're like, ‘this is God's story and he's been taking care of us this whole time.’”

On a recent afternoon, the shop’s customers included friends catching up over cones, a grandmother and granddaughter, and school age kids doing homework and playing Jenga.

After more than a decade in business, Elaine and James are still the primary employees. Their cousin helps out on the weekends.

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“They want you to stay,” said Winnie Laurel, a regular who lives nearby. “It's not a turn and burn, you know, type of place.”

Elaine greeted many people personally — asking about their kids or a recent concert they’d attended.

She said the siblings have grown more confident and more connected to the community over the years.

“The job before was, kind of like, to give the product to the person,” Elaine said. “But now… I feel more like a host of this place and make people feel comfortable.”

They also give back: Within six months of opening, Kansha had donated more than $10,000 to feed children in need. The shop now reports their lifetime giving tops more than $550,000.

The 2026 kids’ flavor contest winners 

About two dozen kids entered the contest this year.

Charlotte's reaction to her first bit of Ooey Gooey Greatness? "Oh, that's good!"

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The hue of 8-year-old Charlotte Hosmer’s painting of a gold-brown scoop of Oooey Gooey Greatness caught James’ eye.

“ It's hard to capture the color of salted caramel, and that was like the perfect color of salted caramel,” James said.

Hosmer envisioned the flavor as a combination of hot fudge, caramel (the Ooey Gooey) and chocolate chips.

“The greatness came from 'cause I thought I was gonna be great,” Charlotte said.

After more than a decade of making ice cream, James can reference the shop's encyclopedia of past flavors for techniques to create the kids’ ideas.

Amaya Ingram's initial reaction to tasting Golden Zoeycolada for the first time?  "I think it's really good!"

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Take the second winner, Golden Zoeycolada— piña colada with pineapple chunks and shortbread cookie— which borrows techniques from a previous Taiwanese pineapple cake ice cream.

Creator Amaya Ingram, 6, was inspired by her favorite fruit and the breakout song from “KPOP Demon Hunters.”

Zoey, the rhyme-spitting star from Burbank, is Amaya’s favorite of the trio and what she dressed up as for Halloween last year —  “She looks a lot like me. Like she has bangs. I have bangs.”

“ I worked so hard on this flavor,” Amaya said. “ I did drawing and thinking and writing and typing.”

How did winning feel?

“Amazing."

Elaine said she hopes the kids who participate feel like their voice matters.

“ Even if you don't win, it's like you made something that you're excited for,” James said. “And you have a chance of something good happening.”

Afterall, everyone who entered gets a free scoop at the shop this week.

Thanks to Cindy Ujiiye for translation help

The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.

Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer.

"We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.

Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.

'If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table," Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.

Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.

But the political realities, combined with Paramount's owners' relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.

Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.

On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.

The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.

President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.

While Netflix's courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.

The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.

Not unnoticed: the Ellisons' warm ties to Trump world.

Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.

David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president's key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.

Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison's pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division's direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.

"I think they're doing a great job," Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it "agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting."
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