Restaurants stand up as Los Angeles wildfires continue

A few weeks ago, I had dinner at La Sorted in Chinatown and my husband and I ate pizza and drank wine while our toddler nibbled on the crust and threw a few salad leaves on the floor. I did. When I visited last Wednesday, with thousands of acres still burning in Los Angeles, the dining room was barely recognizable, with rickety tables reconfigured into an improvised kitchen.

Pizza makers from across the city were packed into the store, unpacking supplies and folding boxes. The line outside the door looked like diners waiting for a table, complete with blue Dodgers hats, oversized vintage button-downs, and esoteric diner T-shirts, but this was a group of volunteer drivers who registered on Instagram It was. They awaited instructions from other volunteers who sorted through hundreds of requests in a series of spreadsheets, text messages, and DMs.

Thousands of firefighters are still working to contain wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands of Angelenos. Every day, several times a day, a collaborative grassroots patchwork of restaurant kitchens, trucks, and makeshift catering operations feeds the city's emergency workers and evacuees.

“It's not something you train for, it's not something you learn,” said La Sorted chef Tommy Brockert, who was evacuated but is now back home. “When things like this happen, people can do extraordinary things.”

Local restaurants aren't equipped to handle emergencies, but there's nothing you can do about it. The people who work in the best restaurants tend to have a basic sense of hospitality combined with an ability to deftly organize chaos.

No one has a greater sense of urgency about cooking for people and caring for them, even if it comes with logistical nightmares. Day to day, that might mean dinner service is on track. When a disaster strikes, 200 people across five locations end up eating a hot dinner.

So many restaurants and restaurant workers were assisting (many of whom evacuated themselves) that the Los Angeles Times plotted them on a map. In her newsletter, writer Emily Wilson tracked the various resources and fundraisers they provided, as well as calls for volunteers and donations.

Khushbu Shah, a New York Times contributor who helped deliver meals herself, wondered when all the independent restaurants who stepped up to help would be able to find funding. .

Most places offering radical hospitality are either self-funded or funded by unstable donations, but the truth is that no one can afford it. Meanwhile, city officials said it would be another week before many people could return home.

Chefs I spoke to by phone this week said employees were demanding time they weren't given and the dining room was too quiet. They said the bills were piling up. They said that a few years ago they might have been able to get through a few tough days or even a tough week, but that's not the case now. Not after the combined economic losses of the pandemic and strikes. They said closures would begin soon.

Still, I was surprised when the owners of Ruby Fruit, a lesbian bar in Silver Lake that I reviewed a few years ago, announced they would be closing, at least temporarily, due to wildfires. It was becoming clear that even restaurants far away from the flames and toxic fumes were not safe from this disaster.

In the first few days after the fire, I canceled several reservations and received cancellation calls from restaurants. Now it's not a safety issue, it's an atmosphere issue. Restaurants are open and air purifiers are running in so many areas, but people are still not going out. You can't escape your own sense of sadness when the whole city is engulfed in sadness.

I didn't realize how much I'd need to be out until I showered, washed my hair, and took a few co-workers to dinner in East Hollywood. These reporters were on the scene all day or all week, unable to leave their laptops.

The moment I held the menu in my hand and the waiter came and asked if I could bring him something to drink or eat, I felt my body relax. “I needed this,” one of us said every few minutes as plates crammed into the space between us. “I really, really needed this.”

“This” wasn't about a particular dining room or a must-order dish, it was about spending time together at a restaurant in Los Angeles, where the wildfires were still burning. It was a sense of safety, resilience, and connection that restaurants insisted on sharing as their own staff navigated the crisis.

I couldn't escape the sadness I felt — it dined with us, it was inevitable — but I couldn't escape the gratitude I felt either.