Restaurants Were The First To Step Up During the LA Wildfires — But Who Is Taking Care of Them?

this is your reminder to still eat out and support local restaurants during times of crisis

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Today’s newsletter is a bit longer than normal and focuses on the LA Wild Fires and the climate crisis that continues to unfold. I include many places to donate in the newsletter below but I highly encourage those who can afford to, donate directly to the Go Fund Me Campaigns of people and families who have been displaced by the fires.

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Nothing is more revealing of character than crisis.

Last Tuesday, a series of heart-wrenching, home-destroying wildfires broke out, engulfing many beloved neighborhoods in Los Angeles, displacing hundreds of thousands in the process. Within 24 hours of the first flames, there were more restaurants than I could keep track of, ready to feed first responders and victims alike.

Chef Justin Pichetrungsi and his team have been hard at work for most of the past week cooking at least 150 protein-heavy meals a day, every day, for those on the front lines fighting the fires and those displaced by the fires. The restaurant, which typically has a jammed packed reservations book, had to shut down their traditional service as many of their staff members were also in the middle of evacuating themselves. (They’ve reopened indoor dining, but outdoor dining is now unsafe thanks due to the air quality from the fires.) Justin and a skeleton crew, many of whom were former employees looking to help, started cooking plates of shrimp and rice.

At first, it was an attempt to use up all the food in the kitchen that had been ordered before it went bad, but soon it became a much larger operation with restaurant seafood purveyor Kelsey Lee building a system on the fly (with chef Anna Sonenshein of Little Fish Echo Park and her sister Julia, who is based in NYC.) This was a rogue system they figured out as they went, calling fire houses and shelters to see who needed meals and who did not, attempting to balance the outpouring of support from chefs wanting to help, and limited channels of distribution.

(I’ve been helping deliver some of these meals and it’s incredibly touching how chefs truly cannot help but cook as much as possible: I was told to expect 20 meals for pick-up, I ended up driving around 50 plates of shrimp beurre blanc and pasta bolognese to two different firehouses.)

They weren’t alone in their eagerness to help. It felt like overnight my instagram feed was flooded with restaurant teams across the city cooking up meals to bring to front line workers and standing offers of free meals for first responders and displaced Angelenos alike from bowls of pancit to pizza, burritos to nourishing bowls of soup. Lists were quickly built at publications like Eater LA, the Infatuation LA, and the Los Angeles Times — lists that continue to grow.

It has been wild and heartening to watch extreme acts of hospitality unfold in real time from the LA Sorted’s team cranking out hundreds of pizzas a day, to

Courtney Storer

’s incredible operation cooking hundreds of meals without a restaurant space, to chef Travis Hayden still cooking and offering meals at Bar Etoile, after his own house burned down in the Pacific Palisades. Immediately, bakeries like Baker’s Bench and Fat + Flour shut down normal operations and became pay what you want or can models, offering those who needed it pastries and sustenance alongside, wifi, outlets, and a place to rest.

What always floors me the most about these operations are the financials. I asked a number of chefs and owners how they were funding these meal drops and they all essentially had the same answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s coming at their own cost and it hopefully will not put them in the red.

(As a note, all of these restaurants are doing this work independently of World Central Kitchen, an amazing organization that has deployed to the affected areas in LA and are working with a coalition of local restaurant partners.)

Sara Kramer of Kismet told me that they “aren’t thinking about that very hard right now. We have plenty of product on site and our staff needs their livelihood and people need meals We will do our best to make the financial side viable.”

Chase Valencia of Lasita in Chinatown says that so far “the hot meal drops we’ve made have been out of pocket for food and labor. We honestly didn’t prioritize funds, we just wanted to get out there and feed people since it’s all we can do at this time, Truthfully it’s not sustainable going out of pocket, specially since we had to close or limit service.”

Justin Pichetrungsi adds that it was one of the last things they were thinking about. “It wasn’t about who’s gonna pay for this food... LA has always been so supportive of us, the least we could do was support LA and do what we can.”

A number of the restaurants have finally set up ways to accept donations through Venmo or to order donation meals on their websites (I will include a list below!), but there is no guarantee that they will receive enough money to offset what they are giving.

Pichetrungsi points out that January is notoriously one of the SLOWEST months for restaurants generally, with the first financial quarter being a struggle for most restaurants after the holiday rush. That is without a gigantic natural disaster shutting them down for traditional service, with even less people feeling inclined to go out to dinner as the city burns. Los Angeles restaurants are coming off of a particularly difficult year, too,

“The environment for our full service restaurant (Kismet) has already been very tenuous,” Kramer told me. “So many factors play into that, including the state o the entertainment industry, changes to the street we’re located on etc. Many of us are struggling, Kismet among them. It’s heartbreak on top of heartbreak right now, after several very hard years.”

“Closing for a few days hurts,” says Valencia. “Ask anyone in the city in this industry! Being a small, independent, family-owned restaurant is already a tightrope walk. We must always be scrappy and always try stay afloat. I wish we could overlook closures, but it’s alway a big deal to make up for the loss when it happens.” What is Valencia most worried about? “The string of slow day/weeks that are going to follow [this.] It is hard to recoup, and we know that’s what can sink us. You are always on the edge when you’re running a restaurant.”

It really begs the question, as these restaurants are supporting the community — who is supporting them?

Many restaurants are simply one bad week away from shutting down. Somehow still, independent restaurants are the first to step up and support the most, even though they are the businesses with the least to give.

Where is the support for these restaurants on a policy level? Why are well-funded companies like Resy and OpenTable, or other major corporations, not helping to create restaurant relief funds to help restaurants with their charity efforts?

Chef Katie Button of Cúrate in Asheville, a city that experienced its own set of natural disasters at the end of 2024 points out on Instagram that the “economic ripple effect of losing one restaurant is enormous.”

Because they are low profit margin businesses, every dollar that typically comes in their front door, goes right back out into their communities, to pay their local workers, farmers, and suppliers. When there is no money coming in the door, the downstream losses that the hospitality workforce and local farmers and suppliers of these restaurants feel is catastrophic and it becomes a giant snowball of economic struggles and business closures. We as a country NEED to solve this failure. The fate of our communities depends upon it.

So what can you do? What can we do?

If you are currently in Los Angeles and are safe and able to, I highly encourage you go out to eat at your favorite local restaurants that are eerily quiet at the moment. Lien Ta of Here’s Looking At You told me that for this Sunday, January 12, they only had 5 reservations in the book. Other restaurants are expressing similar frustrations of low reservation numbers and turn outs. Also, this shouldn’t have to be said, but do not be an asshole who cancels a new reservation last minute, or makes a new reservation and then doesn’t show up. If you cannot dine out, consider ordering pick-up or delivery from a local restaurant, bakery, or coffee shop.

(I personally have grabbed dinner at Rasarumah with my neighbor, ordered delivery from LA Sorted’s when a friend who needed to evacuate was staying with me, and picked up my favorite vegetarian sandwiches from Si Roma and Ggiata, with plans to grab dinner somewhere nearby tonight with a pal.)

If you are not in LA, consider buying gift cards or merch. If you happen to know someone who is displaced, I am sure they would appreciate the gift cards to local restaurants — especially as they rebuild. A hot meal, an escape, is always welcome. I think many shelters and donation sites would also accept these gift cards. TBH, it’s worth sending a gift card to anyone you know in LA at this point just to let them know that you are thinking of them — everyone is just generally going through it. The best part of this is the money will stay circulating in the local LA economy instead of going to large corporations like Amazon. Even a couple hundred dollars can help an independent restaurant’s bottom line.

I know we are all exhausted from the seemingly endless amount of catastrophe that has occurred and continues to occur, and those of us in LA are feeling especially drained and traumatized. There are limits on how much individuals can support and donate and it seems like the number of asks is limitless. But rebuilding after a major natural disaster like this is a marathon and not a sprint, and if we want to rebuild these communities, we need to ensure that there are restaurants, and bakeries, and coffee shops standing as well. These small businesses are the heart of these cities that we love and the place we call home.

WHERE TO DIRECT FUNDS

Restaurants Feeding Front Line Workers/Evacuees (not a complete list!!)
Le Great Outdoor
LA Sorted’s (listed as First Responder Pies)
Anajak Thai (Venmo @anajak-thai)
K&M Coffee (venmo @kandmcoffee)
Uncle Paulie’s Deli (venmo @unclepaulie’sdeli)
Kismet (select donate meals)
Lasita (venmo @lasita-la)
Amiga Amore
Little Fish (venmo @anna-sonenshein)
AOC (donated to feed our community)
Botanica (venmo @Emily-Fiffer)
Lady & Larder (look for donate a meal)
Be U (click on support our community meals)
Bridgetown Roti
Ayara Thai

Hospitality Go Fund Me Campaigns
A really great and relatively comprehensive list here that includes both displaced hospitality workers and restaurants that have been lost to the fires that hope to rebuild.

BUY Restaurant Gift Cards
Most can be purchased through a restaurant’s website. A small list of suggestions below:
Pine & Crane
Found Oyster
Prime Pizza
Kismet
Monroe Place
Fat + Flour
Highly Likely
Tacos 1986

Host a Fundraiser
We need less stuff in Los Angeles, the donation sites have all been inundated with clothing etc, but everyone could use more dollars — especially dollars they can allocate to what they need as they need it. Host a fundraiser yourself and raise funds for the victims or to help your favorite restaurant continue their work of feeding the community. I cannot say it enough, but money is the best thing to donate and the best way to help.

Support the Climate With Your Daily Actions!!

It’s high time everyone evaluate their own relationship with consumption. While big corporations due carry a lot of the blame for climate change, collective action is effective and can really make a difference. There’s a number of simple changes if enough people follow, can actually make a dent (and help shape policy and corporate actions.)

Try going plant-based two to three days a week — or cutting out read meat completely (or only buying things from regenerative sources.)

Actively work to curb all food waste. Nearly 50 percent of all food waste comes from households and nearly all of the waste goes to landfills NOT compost.

Start normalizing bringing your own takeout containers to restaurants, especially if you know you’ll likely have leftovers.