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After 27 Years, Evan Kleiman's Angeli Caffe Will Close on January 8
Julie Wolfson/LAist
The Angeli Caffe will close its doors on Melrose Avenue on January 8, its owner and KCRW "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman announced today.
Kleiman tweeted out this message today: "I'm closing Angeli. I'm bereft and verklempt sharing this news. January 8th is our last night. Please come say bye and share a couple..."
Kleiman said that the restaurant hadn't been operating in the black for a long time, but her search for someone else to take over the 27-year-old brand failed.
"I was open for years when I probably should have closed," Kleiman told the Los Angeles Times. "It was my personal mission to get my employees past the worst of the recession, and I absorbed a lot of losses personally in order to do that and just can't do it anymore."
The restaurant will be open every day between now and the 8th — including New Year's and Monday when the restaurant is usually closed — if you want to pay your last respects. Angeli Caffe regularly made Jonathan Gold's Essential 99 list. For posterity's sake, here is LAist's first taste of the restaurant's signature gnocchi dish.