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Los Angeles Times
08-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
A pioneering L.A.-style soul food bistro to close on Pico after 12 years
My 2 Cents, a soul food bistro that anchors a section of West Pico Boulevard that's home to multiple Black-owned restaurants, is set to close permanently on July 31. Opened by chef Alisa Reynolds in 2013, the restaurant became a neighborhood favorite thanks to a Southern comfort menu that's informed by Reynolds' L.A. upbringing, including turkey meatloaf, grit fries and BLT sandwiches with fried green tomatoes. 'It's something that I've been thinking about for the last few years,' Reynolds said of the restaurant's closure. 'For me, I think the best thing to do is to be able to feed people in their homes, do pop-ups, do collabs, and make the city excited again. I can do more as chef Alisa than I can do at My 2 Cents.' Moving forward, Reynolds, who was a private chef for the Dodgers and rapper-actor Common before opening My 2 Cents, will focus on expanding the restaurant's catering arm, in addition to collaborations and pop-ups with local chefs and restaurants. She is also developing a product line. 'I want to inspire the world through my food,' she said. 'Sometimes you have to make such decisions, especially during times when everything is changing.' Listed on The Times' guide to the 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. for two years running, My 2 Cents joins a growing list of notable restaurant closures this year, including fellow 101 awardee Here's Looking at You in Koreatown last month. Reynolds cited a host of reasons for the closure, including significant financial loss following the COVID pandemic, Hollywood industry strikes, January wildfires and, most recently, ongoing raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 'I just kept going. I was like, 'Nothing's going to stop us. We have to,'' said Reynolds, who called the decision to close My 2 Cents one of the hardest she's ever had to make. 'I had so many great customers and clients that believed in this restaurant. Because I think that it was more than a restaurant. It was like a little movement of love.' This is not the first time My 2 Cents has been under threat of closure. In 2017, Reynolds launched a crowdfunding campaign to settle a lawsuit brought by former backers of the restaurant. Multi-hyphenate entrepreneur Issa Rae joined forces with musicians Solange and Earl Sweatshirt on a fundraising dinner that helped keep its doors open. When pandemic shutdowns forced the restaurant's closure in 2020, Reynolds launched Tacos Negros, a takeout and delivery menu featuring tacos that took inspiration from pan-African foodways, including a six-hour-braised oxtail taco that the Food team listed on its guide to the 101 Best Tacos in L.A. The tacos became so popular that after restaurants reopened for dine-in, she added the most-ordered options to the permanent menu. My 2 Cents is located in a shopping plaza that belongs to a single landlord, who Reynolds says is under immense pressure from developers. 'That's the hardest part because I love the neighborhood so much,' Reynolds said. 'But I don't want to invest any more money there because it could be gone any day.' Just a couple doors down from My 2 Cents sits Stevie's Creole Cafe, a long-standing storefront that serves what late restaurant critic Jonathan Gold once called 'the best bowl of gumbo this side of New Orleans.' A few blocks east of that is Sky's Gourmet Tacos, a Black-owned taco shop that popularized a distinctly soulful approach to tacos that has since proliferated across the city. 'I just wonder if we're going to recognize Pico in 10 years,' Reynolds said. When it first opened in 2013, My 2 Cents helped lay the foundation for an L.A.-inspired take on Southern comfort food to flourish across the city. Host of the Daytime Emmy Award-winning 'Searching for Soul Food' series on Hulu, Reynolds says the restaurant was one of the first in L.A. to put shrimp and grits on its brunch menu. 'My goal in opening [My 2 Cents] was, and the name is, my perspective on soul food,' said Reynolds, who's set her menu apart with scratch-made sauces, local produce and plenty of vegan and gluten-free options, including a six-cheese mac and cheese with brown rice penne. 'I thought that it would be my love letter to Los Angeles as a French-trained chef and yet, a Black girl who also remembers her mom made pork chops on Thursday.' At My 2 Cents, Reynolds coats her grilled pork chops in a sweet agave jerk sauce, an homage to the origins of Jamaican jerk seasoning, which was first used on wild boars. In the homey dining room, vibrant art hangs on the walls and seasoning blends popular in Black households — Old Bay, Slap Ya Mama — balance on shelves next to cookbooks, with an array of eye-catching desserts, all of them baked by Reynolds' sister Theresa Fountain, arranged on the counter behind them. Diners have plenty of opportunities to make memories at My 2 Cents before the restaurant closes its doors for good. Every Wednesday beginning this week, the restaurant will host a wine tasting alongside a Southern-inspired tapas buffet. A two-drink minimum grants customers access to the bottomless spread and the menu changes weekly based on Reynolds' whims, with past bites including jerk chicken sliders on pretzel bread and goat cheese with hot honey on naan. My 2 Cents will also continue to host its popular '90s brunch on Sundays, with a live DJ and guests encouraged to dress on theme. Though the restaurant will close its doors at the end of this month, its final celebration will take place in the shopping plaza's parking lot on Aug. 1, complete with food, drinks and a live DJ. As for the future, Reynolds says fans of My 2 Cents can stay updated about events and pop-ups on Instagram. 'It's been a 12-year run,' Reynolds said. 'It's going to be a wild ride, but we are not going anywhere and that food is still going to be here forever.'
Time Out
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
This popular Koreatown restaurant in LA is shutting its doors in June
After nearly 10 bold years in the heart of Koreatown, one of L.A.'s most inventive restaurants is calling it a night. Here's Looking at You, the genre-defying, community-driven spot from restaurateur Lien Ta and the late chef Jonathan Whitener, will serve its last meal on Friday, June 13. The closure was announced via a heartfelt Instagram post from Ta on May 6. ' We have closed this restaurant a few painful times,' she wrote. 'You could argue that we ought to be used to it by now, but… No, we are most certainly not. To the best guests in the world, I am so sorry to say: HLAY is closing forever—no take-backs this time.' The shutdown coincides with the end of the restaurant's 10-year lease, and, as Ta notes, the end of her own chapter in the restaurant world. Opened in 2016, HLAY quickly earned a cult following thanks to its genre-hopping menu—uni panna cotta one day, salsa-negra-crusted frogs' legs the next—and front-of-house warmth that made it feel like the coolest dinner party in town. Whitener, previously chef de cuisine at Animal, brought daring creativity to the kitchen, while Ta, a hospitality veteran, anchored the experience in deep care and community. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Here's Looking At You (@hereslookingatyoula) Together, the duo launched All Day Baby in Silver Lake, which closed in late 2024. But it's HLAY that remained their true north, even weathering pandemic-era shutdowns, landlord negotiations, and the heartbreaking loss of Whitener in early 2024. 'Tattoo us lucky that we saw Chef through his skewer era, his chips era… all the elegance, the blood cake and, damn, the sweetbreads,' wrote Ta. 'When I thought HLAY was sure to close last spring, this tiny mighty army has kept it open with immense honor.' In these final weeks, the restaurant will serve what Ta calls a celebration of 'my favorite living restaurant.' So if you've never made it to this Koreatown gem —or just want one last plate of something unforgettable—you've got until June 13.
Los Angeles Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Koreatown's Here's Looking at You to close next month: ‘I've really, really pushed all limits'
On June 13 one of the city's most celebrated, eclectic restaurants will close after nearly a decade of accolades, frog legs and cocktails tinged with fresh fruits and vegetables. Here's Looking at You, the genre-bending Koreatown restaurant from restaurateur Lien Ta and late chef Jonathan Whitener, is ending its run six months after the closure of its Silver Lake sibling restaurant, All Day Baby. It currently holds the No. 15 spot on the Los Angeles Times 101 best restaurants list. A number of factors contributed to the decision, Ta told The Times, but one loomed larger than the rest: the 2024 death of Whitener, at 36, which sent shockwaves through L.A.'s culinary community. 'With chef's passing, I couldn't really see how we were going to continue,' Ta said. The restaurateur also credits the loss of business post-pandemic, but says there was no concern of a rent increase, and that she could have found a replacement head chef or flipped the concept entirely. The biggest factor in the decision was the loss of Whitener. 'The truth is that I created this restaurant with Jonathan, and he's eternally my collaborator,' she said. 'The remaining team are all in agreement that we want this to remain Jonathan's restaurant. We are missing our leader. Signing on for another five-year lease doesn't make sense when your leader is gone.' Ta left a role in entertainment journalism to pursue hospitality full-time, and worked as a manager in the Jon & Vinny's restaurant group when she met Whitener, then chef de cuisine of Animal. Jonathan Gold characterized his cooking as 'strong flavors, jolts of acidity and torn Asian herbs, and a tendency to stuff hints of umami almost everywhere it might conceivably belong.' 'Eating his food,' Ta said, 'lifted my soul.' She realized that he could be the chef she'd been looking for: someone to partner in a restaurant, the half of the operation that could oversee the kitchen and menu planning while she helmed the front of the house. In 2016 they flipped a former Philly cheesesteak shop into a nouveau bistro where Whitener's mackerel mingled with marigolds, baseball steak paired with curly fries and a few dishes — such as the just-charred rib-eye, the shishito peppers atop tonnato, and the frog legs with salsa negra — became modern L.A. classics. It quickly drew national praise, landing on best-of lists from Food & Wine, Eater and more. Locally it became a fixture on the L.A. Times 101 List. It served as the centerpiece for Patric Kuh's 'Becoming a Restaurateur (Masters at Work),' a book on Whitener and Ta's struggles and triumphs in building one of the country's trendiest restaurants. When the pandemic hit, Here's Looking at You was still going strong. It shuttered for 17 months due to COVID-19, then reopened in 2022 to great acclaim, though Ta tells The Times that the restaurant has been 'running slim in the kitchen,' limiting their staff because business never reached pre-pandemic success again. The following years brought additional difficulties. 'I think so many of us have had to contend with [closing] being a possibility or an outcome,' Ta said, 'and it's been slow at many L.A. businesses since the strikes.' Business began to trickle in 2023 during the entertainment-industry strikes, which halted revenue for multiple local industries, including L.A. restaurants. In 2024 the unthinkable happened. Whitener died, unexpectedly, in his home; his passing left Ta feeling unmoored. Local chefs rallied around the restaurant, including Ronan chef-owner Daniel Cutler, who served as resident chef for a time. Catastrophe struck again in early 2025, when the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. With the city in turmoil, Ta said the restaurant also saw a significant dip in revenue. For the last two years Ta said she's seen 'this pendulum swing' of 30% to 40% of sales losses because of circumstances beyond her control, and would count herself lucky if even half the dining room was full. She tried to pivot by changing Here's Looking at You's business hours, shifting from a Thursday-to-Monday operation to a Tuesday-to-Saturday model. The lack of business on Sunday and Monday nights could be especially depressing. Mondays, long considered an industry night for hospitality workers, were no longer lucrative because those in the restaurant and bar industry lack the disposable income they once had. She hoped that no longer competing with Sunday-evening television premieres and sports would help. 'I'd wake up with this horrible dread all the time, wondering if anyone was going to book a reservation or come in at all, and who we were going to cut [from service],' Ta said. 'We were always running half the team, and that just doesn't feel good.' It wasn't until she shuttered their Silver Lake restaurant, All Day Baby, in December that she was able to fully reflect on the future of Here's Looking at You, and on her own personal needs. In the months since, Ta says she's been kinder to herself and taken care of needs as requisite as visiting a doctor. She's begun to fully allow herself to grieve, not only Whitener, but also a father figure whom she lost months later. 'I was definitely buried in a lot of grief,' she said. 'I'm still grieving, but sometimes I wasn't really sure what to focus on this last year, to be honest … a lot of restaurant owners are sort of programmed to always find solutions, to get through the day or the week or whatever your metric is. I've been doing that for a long time.' Faced with the termination of the lease and years of professional and emotional turbulence, she made the decision to close this year. Ta said making the Instagram announcement was 'deeply emotional,' but that she felt relief in finally revealing the news; she'd alerted her staff in March. As she entered work Tuesday night, the stress began to dissipate. The restaurant filled with fans coming to get final tastes. A troupe of Magic Castle performers even traveled across the city upon hearing the news, donning matching Here's Looking at You shirts, then performed magic tricks for the other guests in the dining room (they'll be performing a magic show Friday night elsewhere, fundraising for L.A. wildfire victims). Reservations for the remainder of the restaurant's run are nearly entirely booked, though Ta plans to reserve space for walk-ins beyond the seats at the bar. The coming weeks will see new merchandise, as well as the return of pop-up Tiki Fever from bartenders Joanne Martinez and Jesse Sepulveda (an All Day Baby vet) on May 19. Other familiar faces will make an appearance, including a June 7 guest-bartending shift from bar alum and No Us Without You co-founder Damian Diaz. After June 13, Ta isn't sure what comes next. In the closure announcement she wrote that 'this lease is ending, as is [her] era as a restaurateur.' She tells The Times that maybe someday she could reenter the restaurant world again, but not for a long while; what she needs first is to rest and recover, and determine what she wants and needs beyond restaurant life. Operating a restaurant in normal circumstances is demanding and stressful. Operating two through a pandemic, industry-wide strikes that led to economic downturn, and citywide wildfires is anything but normal. 'The last five years have been completely unrelenting and unfriendly, and it's unhealthy, frankly, and I've done the best that I can,' Ta said. 'I've really, really pushed all limits.' What she does know is that she will continue to champion small businesses through her volunteer work with the Independent Hospitality Coalition, where her partner, Eddie Navarrette, serves as executive director. Sometimes she envisions herself moonlighting as a shift supervisor in a restaurant she really cares about, or mentoring younger restaurateurs in need of guidance and business know-how. 'But first thing's first, I just need to close the [Here's Looking at You] chapter in the way that I think it deserves,' Ta said. 'I'm afraid of a lot of things, but in a weird way, I'm not necessarily afraid of what will happen to me.'
