Of their soul, everybody has a historic restaurant they miss dearly in Los Angeles.

Some fell sufferer to the mounting challenges that eating places face in L.A.: gentrification, rising retail rental prices, and a chronic monetary fallout following pandemic closures, Hollywood trade strikes and the devastating January wildfires.

Regardless of their premature finish, town’s most iconic eating places haven’t light from our collective reminiscence. Within the following record, Meals writers mirror on a few of L.A.’s bygone eating places and what they meant to us. Whether or not it was the meals, environment or reliably heat service, these are the locations that may by no means be replicated, and that we’d reopen if we may.

Only in the near past, we’ve misplaced stalwarts together with the century-old Unique Pantry Cafe in downtown L.A. and Papa Cristo’s, a bustling Greek market and restaurant in Pico-Union for 77 years.

Which eating places would you reopen if you might? Scroll right down to the response type on the backside to share your recollections of our metropolis’s hallowed haunts.

— Danielle Dorsey

Pacific Eating Automobile

The ultimate demise of Pacific Eating Automobile — the long-lasting steakhouse inside a railway automobile on sixth Road — was a heartbreaker for Los Angeles. What number of instances did I slide into considered one of its inexperienced upholstered cubicles at a white-cloth desk at any hour of the day or evening (because it was open around the clock)? We ordered baseball steaks on Fridays to kick off the weekend, gathered for brunch to have fun graduations, and ended up there for middle-of-the-night burgers or chocolate soufflés after exhibits or my sister’s late shift as a waitress downtown, or once we’d exhausted all different choices at 2 a.m. We had been unruly however had been at all times welcomed by the veteran waiters and obtained the identical polished, affected person service each time. The Pacific Eating Automobile, in addition to its satellite tv for pc web site in Santa Monica, by no means reopened after the 2020 pandemic shutdowns. Two fires since 2024 lastly led to the Westlake unique’s demolition in March. — Betty Hallock

Overland Cafe

Shortly after shifting to L.A. within the 2000s, I used to be operating round with a bunch that included a financial institution teller, a stylist, a Diesel denims individual and two hairdressers, the place the one factor that unified us was deep home and celebration garments. One weekend morning that started with pink wine earlier than breakfast discovered us tumbling westward with no vacation spot from Echo Park, until somebody advised us to satisfy them on the Overland Cafe in Palms. By the point we bought there, the room was popping with ebullient singles power, transmitted upon plates of eggs benedict, pancakes and so, so many mimosas. It was a riotous morning. We charmed the server to the purpose that she doubled up the Champagne, a number of instances, and if reminiscence serves, she truly agreed to hang around with us after her shift. And did! Palms wasn’t “cool” on the time, however the Overland Cafe was; there for the nice previous instances, or a clumsy first enterprise assembly, dependable. In 2023, the Overland Cafe closed after 50 years in operation. What number of sloppy mimosa brunches did you’ve got there? Teardrop. — Daniel Hernandez

The Pico location of Roscoe’s Rooster and Waffles closed in 2023.

(Astrid Kayembe / Los Angeles Instances)

Roscoe’s Home of Rooster ’n Waffles on West Pico

Earlier than I moved to L.A., associates and I might drive up from Riverside on weekends to attend live shows on the Knitting Manufacturing facility and Home of Blues, solely to finish up at Roscoe’s on West Pico Boulevard afterward. The car parking zone doubled as an after-party, with teams crowded on the hoods of vehicles that vibrated with the bass of hip-hop tracks as they waited for his or her events to be sat. There was nothing higher than rehashing the evening over the Carol C. Particular (one hen breast and one waffle) paired with Lisa’s Delight, a pucker-sweet iced tea lemonade, earlier than we braved the freeway again dwelling. The legendary location closed in 2023 after 32 years, making method for a bigger outpost on the nook of Washington and La Brea. An honorable point out goes to the Pasadena location of Roscoe’s that my household frequented after Sunday church and dance recitals after I was rising up. It closed final yr. — D.D.

Yujean Kang’s

When Yujean Kang’s opened in 1991, it helped remodel sleepy Pasadena right into a culinary vacation spot, introducing diners to Kang’s distinctly haute takes on regional Chinese language cuisines. I nonetheless dream of his miniature pork wontons swimming in an addictively tangy chile and vinegar sauce; the crispy beef in a candy and spicy glaze and the tea-smoked duck, nestled into delicate crepes with good plum sauce. — Jenn Harris

A scene at Greenblatt’s Deli on its closing evening.

(Stephanie Brejio / Los Angeles Instances)

Greenblatt’s Deli

No Jewish-deli closure rocked town so laborious as Greenblatt’s, which shuttered with little warning in 2021 after 95 years of pastrami and smoked-fish salads. Los Angeles has misplaced so many through the years, particularly stalwart chain Jerry’s Well-known Deli (a childhood favourite of mine resulting from its stacked sandwiches) and Fairfax’s Diamond Bakery. A two-story West Hollywood behemoth bedecked in stained glass, brass and darkish wooden, Greenblatt’s doubled as a bottle store however extra importantly served as a gathering place for therefore many generations of Angelenos. It counted Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Janis Joplin as clients. It’s the place considered one of my finest associates requested me to be her bridesmaid over a shared pastrami on rye and bowl of matzo ball soup. I sped over to the Sundown Strip on its final evening of service to survey the scene and chat with its a long time of followers who’d dropped by for a farewell chew — the gravity of the closure appeared to weigh on everybody there. We knew what we had been shedding, and it nonetheless stings. — Stephanie Breijo

Sawtelle Kitchen

My first solo residence as a scholar attending UCLA was in an alley behind Masayuki Ishikawa’s unconventional French-Japanese restaurant Sawtelle Kitchen. I bought to know Ishikawa (he parked his automobile within the spot subsequent to mine) properly sufficient that I may stroll downstairs to Sawtelle Kitchen’s again door and order espresso jelly (although there was no takeout) and return the empty parfait glass after I’d completed the dessert. However I additionally liked consuming contained in the tiny, picket home of a restaurant and ordering my favourite pasta: spaghetti with butter, shiso and ume, or pickled plum. I ate it so many instances that I can nonetheless make a reasonably shut approximation. — B.H.

Legendary courtroom journalist Linda Deutsch, in blue, together with fellow members of the Oy Luck Membership, gathering one final time at Off Vine restaurant.

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Instances)

Off VineBrite Spot

Lots of the Silver Lake and Echo Park standbys that I’d cycle between in my early 20s have closed. Spaceland, Silver Lake Espresso, Pizza Buona. Brite Spot was a diner associates and I might land at after bouncing between Gold Room, Brief Cease and the Echo, or as a result of every little thing else was closed and we sought a florescent-lighted, vinyl-upholstered haven for pre-dawn yapping. The meals was at all times mediocre, however the environment, people-watching and round the clock hours made it a retro-hued oasis for neighborhood evening owls. — D.D.

Style of Bangkok

My first introduction to Thai meals was within the Pasadena eating room of Style of Bangkok restaurant within the early Nineteen Nineties. My household feasted on Sue and Phil Balderama’s stir-fried noodles, curries and mango with sticky rice weekly. After greater than 20 years in enterprise, the restaurant was compelled to shut to make room for a resort restoration challenge. I’ll at all times bear in mind Sue’s meals, and the way she made us really feel like household. — J.H.

Dive!

Dive! pictured on the Century Metropolis Mall in 1994.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Instances)

For just a few transient years one of many world’s most well-known movie administrators answered the query, “What if you could eat submarine sandwiches inside of a submarine?” From 1994 to 1999, a vibrant yellow fake sub protruded from a nook of the Century Metropolis Mall (now the Westfield), the place each 45 minutes a simulated “dive” would happen — blaring sirens, flashing lights and effervescent porthole home windows included. To a baby of round 8 or 9 years, Dive! — from leisure impresarios Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steve Wynn — was a wonderland. This wasn’t simply lunch, it was journey. Kitsch. Madness even in an period of Planet Hollywood and the Rainforest Cafe.

I’ve by no means forgotten Dive! In actual fact, for Halloween in 2023, I dressed as Spielberg selling the restaurant, sourcing classic Dive! merch off EBay. I can’t bear in mind a lot of the meals there, however I’ll always remember the expertise of sitting inside this singular, aquatic-themed, 11,000-square-foot extraordinarily ’90s restaurant with my dad, pink lights blasting round us. — S.B.