SHOULD THESE RESTAURANTS B SAVED?
For many restaurants and small business eateries, a lot has happened in the months during COVID 19 fallout which immediately changed the model of how people eat out. Some spots like Kitchen 24, Max City BBQ, Hop Woo BBQ Seafood Restaurant and Tacos Poncitlan, to name a few, elected to parlay from sit-down dining to take-out service without missing a beat; others thrive through reputation of providing iconic eats like Dino's Chicken and Burgers; and places like Rebublique went from fine-dining aesthete to full-on marketplace meeting meaningful success. What’s more, these businesses give priority, not only to remain faithful to its customer, but, more importantly to its staff as much as to their own livelihood.
Then there are restaurant businesses that are businesses first – with a capital B. Bs that only see profit margins and gross and take advantage of any opportunity, including a health crisis, to remain lucrative.
One B benefited by closing its doors during lockdown than staying open; another B that has no business being open due to a kitchen lacking any prohibitive standard of hygiene; and, the biggest B of all, that would ultimately do better to just drown its ego and call its time of death rather than precede with an offshoot that’s merely replicating the threadbare gimmick of its heyday.
Now that restaurants in LA County are opening again – operating under strict safety initiatives and directives – I couldn’t help but wonder how these Bs can fair in this new era of dining when they weren’t able to operate prior.
Ask not if these Bs can be saved…but, should they?
Here are three Bs that, in my opinion, need to shut it down – for good.
ANGLER | LOS ANGELES
On March 13th, Angler LA temporarily closed its doors ‘out of an abundance of caution’ citing the concerns for the ‘health and safety’ of its team and guests, so reads the message tacked to the restaurant’s website. However, many former employees of both Angler LA and Saison Hospitality – the umbrella which many of Chef and owner Joshua Skenes’ businesses operate under – are skeptical COVID 19 was even the reason for the restaurant shutting its doors, even if nonpermanent.
‘A global pandemic couldn’t have happened at a better time for Chef [Skenes]’…
Double digit bookings (including covers of only 30 reservations over two seatings this past New Year’s Eve); reckless spending on special orders from vendors for Skenes’ side venture, Skenes Place (where the Chef hosts dinners from his home in the hills of Los Angeles by invitation only at $1,000.00 a pop); and impending lawsuits against Skenes and Saison Hospitality (for misuse of investor funds and, more recently, a wrongful termination suit from former Director of Culinary Logistics for the company, Chef Jonathan De Wolf, to name a few) are said to be what’s actually plaguing (no pun intended) the sea-life focused concept, which opened almost a year ago.
Michelin star Chef, Joshua Skenes, pictured here in 2019 at his Angler San Francisco restaurant which is currently firing up over priced barbecue for take-out under its new name, Saison Smokehouse.
Photo: © Craig Lee
‘A global pandemic couldn’t have happened at a better time for Chef [Skenes],’ laughed one source familiar with the daily operations of Angler LA. ‘[Management] was already sending AM [shift] home before noon since January – before any of this shit happened. Anyone [being paid] hourly was sent home early or told not to come in … to trim cost,’ the source went on to say – with those on salary picking up the slack and the hours.
Saison Hospitality organized a GoFundMe campaign on March 18th to provide financial aid to ‘support team members and friends of the restaurant community’ called JIAYOU (a Mandarin Chinese expression of encouragement meaning add oil). At the time of this posting, the fundraiser has accrued only $5,710 of its $50,000.00 goal. Several sources boldly allege the drive is a ‘scam’ orchestrated by Skenes to pay off his own debts and legal fees. (NOTE: GoFundMe has lenient guidelines with withdrawing funds during a campaign which will not affect the amount displayed during its run.)
On April 11th, Angler San Francisco was repurposed for Saison Smokehouse; ‘a real wood barbecue joint, with comfort-driven food’ for take-out at Michelin star prices. Operated by underlings of Skenes, the Bay Area pop-up has proven successful. Meanwhile, on May 28th, Angler LA announced through a photo-op on its Instagram account that the restaurant opened its kitchen in paid partnership with Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen; which, according to its website, ensures weekly revenue to re-hire workers, purchase from vendors, and, more importantly, pay rent. To quote John D Rockefeller Jr, ‘Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.’ Skenes is evidently a ward of his own detriment.
HAPPIER TIMES – Chef Jonathan De Wolf (Center) with Chef Skenes and former Chef de Partie and Forager, Lon Ho, are all smiles at Saison San Francisco in this archive photo 2010. De Wolf filed a wrongful termination suit against Skenes and Saison Hospitality this past February.
Photo: Katherine Martinelli / © StarChefs
Situated in the recesses of a parking structure between Beverly Center and its discount offshoot, Beverly Connection (befitting since the interior resembles a summer’s end clearance sale at Home Goods), Angler LA has been in the midst of rumors amongst the top tier of LA’s restaurant elite believing it will most likely not be around by the end of 2020. The scuttlebutt gained traction at the beginning of the year, following the abrupt closure of another seafood restaurant and Beverly Center occupant, Osteria Cal Mare, which shuttered before Christmas 2019.
Honestly, if you’re going to open a seafood restaurant in a mall, it better have ‘Red’ and ‘Lobster’ in its name.
UPDATE: On June 11th, three days after this story was posted, Saison Smokehouse ‘donated’ $21,000.00 of its revenue to its own JIAYOU Community Relief Fund by Saison Hospitality.
PIZZANA | BRENTWOOD
Pizzana | Brentwood, located at 11712 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049
How this petri dish remained open astounds me.
The house of thousand managers, otherwise known as Pizzana Brentwood, led by figurehead and real-life Mario Brother, Daniele Uditi, is probably one of the most unsanitary and filthiest restaurants anyone wouldn’t want to work in – much less eat.
PHOTO OP – Pizzana’s Daniele Uditi (squatting) pictured in April with hospital staff from UCLA during the height of the COVID 19 pandemic.
A hallway for a kitchen where hand sinks double for prep; a few feet of space upstairs where Uditi’s fabled 48 hour ‘slow dough’ is ‘tossed by hand’ early in the morning and left on countertops covered in trash bags for several hours to ‘ferment,’ before eventually being bouled up and placed in proofing bins and jammed in an over-packed walk-in for use the following morning for service; and a passive aggressive management including VP of operations, Troy Andrian (a Bottega Louie alum, who during his brief tenure as GM was best remembered for ordering lunch every day at the same time without compromise) all cowering to the ruling mob mentality of its BOH who are self-exempt from following any guidelines provided by the California Department of Health are just a few reasons why I’m baffled that Pizzana Brentwood has not shut down – pandemic notwithstanding. The West Hollywood location, too. (Pizzana WeHo is a satellite store, meaning no prep or production of any kind is done on the premises; it’s all being made in Brentwood.)
At the time I worked at Pizzana Brentwood in 2019, there was talk of a makeshift commissary under construction to keep up with turn around and volume for both locations. The building, located at 10952 Santa Monica Boulevard, is owned by serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Pizzana, Charles Nelson, which is also where his activewear line for men, Willy California, is manufactured and produced. Some Polpette al Forno with your compression shorts, folks?
Regardless of whether food is being made at the restaurant or offsite, given the work practices and conditions I witnessed on the daily when I was there, I find it highly unlikely Uditi and company were following any criteria implemented by the CDC to prevent the spread of COVID 19 while Pizzana Brentwood’s kitchen remained operational.
BOTTEGA LOUIE | WEST HOLLYWOOD
Bottega Louie | DTLA, located at 700 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90017
In his December 2019 article for Eater LA, Senior Editor for the food and dining brand, Farley Elliott, asserted Bottega Louie’s downtown digs a ‘financial beast’ – while reporting, ironically, the most recent travails postponing the restaurant’s West Hollywood location leaving over 200 new hires unemployed and without pay before Christmas. What Elliott failed to surmise in his fawning assessment is what makes Bottega Louie a monetary behemoth rests on two things: one, its macarons and two, its Grand Ave address being a destination.
Sources close to the story Elliot covered – that news and lifestyle site, WEHOville, initially broke and several media outlets in LA followed, including yours truly – allege last year’s delay to open Bottega Louie West Hollywood was not due to heating and air-conditioning problems as first reported, but simply the restaurant’s commissary would not be able to keep up with the volume and production of its confectionary cash-cow for both WeHo and DTLA – especially during the holiday season. Furthermore, sources claim the powers that be at BHFC (the holding company doing business as Bottega Louie) were not only concerned with paying their employees overtime or time-and-a-half to meet demand, but also worried of having two locations opened at the same time; assuming one will do better than the other, or worse, result in split earnings between the two restaurants – thus taking a financial hit either way. Yes, you’ve read that last part correctly.
‘Despite Bottega Louie deserving bragging rights for revitalizing DTLA over a decade ago … its concept is flash in the pan.’
Regardless, the reputation BoLou WeHo has built by fits and starts over the last three years since it broke ground at 8936 Santa Monica Boulevard is the very least of its problems – oddly enough – as it is Bottega Louie itself. It’s simply outdated.
Despite Bottega Louie deserving bragging rights for revitalizing DTLA over a decade ago – spearheading what is now Restaurant Row – its concept is flash in the pan. The Italian eatery / French patisserie mashup worked when downtown, which was primarily a fast-food haven at the time, didn’t have a restaurant offering what CEO/President of Bottega Louie, Christopher Bollenbach, described (at an employee/management meeting in November 2018) as ‘accessible luxury’ outside the confines of LA’s more affluent neighborhoods; appealing to an otherwise unworldly and uneducated clientele.
Bottega Louie | West Hollywood, located at 8936 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood 90069
Photo: FORKD Archives / 2018
But that renaissance is over. DTLA has become as the Los Angeles Times noted in 2013, ‘a neighborhood with an increasingly hip and well-heeled residential population,’ including the recent gentrification of Skid Row which is now a prime spot for upward-millennials. Younger, hipper, more creative and focused concepts are bringing new revitalization to today’s downtown eateries, appealing to a well-versed and discerning palate; ultimately revealing what Bottega Louie truly is: a quasi-high-end box store for the wannabe elite—a tourist trap in tow. It’s a ‘beast’ alright, made to be a burden only to itself. And although it can pat itself on the back for downtown’s boom, BoLou is inevitably hoisting itself by its own petard by opening this second location.
And the idea that lightening can strike twice over a decade later by sullied name alone is improbable.
WeHo has functioned nicely with places to nosh – striking the right balance of local haunts to popular franchises and laid-back to lavish eateries – without having a glass-front identity crisis on display in its neighborhood; all for a stale macaron and over-priced lasagna. But, then again, who knows. As long as self-aggrandizing food bloggers maintain their allegiance in exchange for comps, BoLou WeHo may very well go on to be the scratch spawn of that monetary monster despite being the offspring of a futile artifact.
We’ll have to wait and see, however.
While operations for both its downtown restaurant and commissary remain temporarily suspended for the period of lockdown due to COVID 19, Bottega Louie, via its website, furtively pushed back the launch of its West Hollywood locale to 2021. How bad was that heating and cooling system installed?
I’m sure it will take time, months perhaps, before we get adjusting to a ‘new normal’. However, with other restaurants being resourceful and forward-thinking in how they operate in times of crisis – while proving successful and keeping afloat – is demonstrative that they are ready for whatever their futures hold; while the Bs’ prospects appear bleak, somewhat, but, foreseeable, should they be fixed and unyielding in believing it’ll be business as usual.