Legendary Los Angeles Restaurant the Authentic Pantry Cafe Abruptly Closes After 101 Years

After 101 years, the Authentic Pantry Cafe closed in Downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, March 2, 2025, reviews the Los Angeles Occasions. The legendary diner, which operated for twenty-four hours a day, seven days every week for many of its existence, closed on account of a dispute between unionizing staff and its proprietor, the Richard J. Riordan household belief. Followers waited for hours over the weekend to get a ultimate style of the down-home diner specializing in ham steak and eggs, steak, pancakes, fried potatoes, and crunchy coleslaw.

In 1981, former LA mayor Richard Riordan bought the Authentic Pantry Cafe after a server advised him that he was consuming too slowly whereas studying a e book. “I fell in love with proper then,” Riordan advised the Los Angeles Occasions in 2008. Riordan operated the Pantry Cafe for many years, opening Riordan’s Tavern subsequent door and feeding generations of Angelenos. The Pantry Cafe was well-known for its lack of door locks, and solely closed a number of instances in its hallowed historical past: It remained open through the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion however was compelled to quickly shut through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. After pandemic restrictions lifted, the restaurant reopened with restricted service from 7 a.m. to three p.m. on weekdays and till 5 p.m. on weekends as a substitute of its normal around-the-clock operation.

When Riordan handed away in 2023, his household’s belief assumed possession and deliberate to promote the restaurant to fund its philanthropic operations. Even after its closure yesterday, union staff protested in entrance of the restaurant previous 6 p.m. Unite Right here, which represents the employees, filed an unfair labor follow cost with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board on February 7 with allegations that the closure violates federal labor regulation. On February 25, the NLRB dismissed the cost on account of “lack of cooperation from the Charging Social gathering.” The union can nonetheless enchantment the choice. Again in April 2023, a number of weeks earlier than Riordan died, a class-action lawsuit alleging unpaid extra time, relaxation, and meal breaks was filed on behalf of staff; the case remained in settlement talks as of February 2025.

Matthew Kang

Matthew Kang

Although the Richard J. Riordan belief is trying to promote the enterprise, the union nonetheless desires to make sure that new homeowners will honor the present labor contract. “It’s nonetheless open from their perspective,” union spokesperson Kurt Peterson advised the Occasions.

The restaurant’s usually bustling vibes might be attributed to households, enterprise varieties, night time owls, and faculty children, its tables separated by wood-paneled dividers. A protracted open kitchen and entrance counter provided a view of busy brief order cooks rattling their spatulas over a steel-top grill. It was, with out query, probably the most iconic eating places in Los Angeles historical past. The abrupt closure comes within the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025 and the COVID-19 pandemic that enormously diminished foot visitors, in-person workplace staff, and residents in Downtown Los Angeles. Lately, Downtown locals had been betting on a return to its pre-pandemic enterprise and housing ranges, and most nights of the yr, the world round L.A. Reside and Crypto.com Enviornment continues to attract hundreds of holiday makers.

This story can be up to date as extra data turns into obtainable.