In today’s issue: a Brentwood-style country mart is in the works for the east side, Wilde’s makes a political endorsement, the Gay Guy Night at Taix team is back with a new venture, Audrey Hobert shot her Interview profile in Glendale, proteinmaxxers are squeezing LA’s fast-casual restaurants, a Lincoln Heights theater becomes a coffee shop, Zach Baron’s interview show, the Ggiata boys are throwing a block party, Dolly Parton loved El Chavo, and two houses for less than $1mm in Echo Park.

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Toto, we’re not in Brentwood (or Malibu, or Montecito) anymore.

A few months ago, I was chatting with a real estate observer who expressed surprise that there isn’t a “country mart”-style concept (of the Brentwood or Malibu variety) anywhere on the broader east side. Surely, this person surmised, there are plenty of people on this side of town who’d appreciate a town square-style place to grab a bite, shop a little, and — more than anything else — hang out in a communal green space?

Though there are many reasons that kind of development hasn’t historically existed on this side of town (and no, the Americana doesn’t count), east side demographics are rapidly evolving. And now, ready or not, the east side’s country mart era is upon us.

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In today’s issue: Max Friedlich and Hannah Getts talk The Holes (and LA theater), Jumbo’s Clown Room is temporarily closed, a cheat sheet for Echo Park Rising, Wake and Late rolled out an AI-generated ad campaign, an Elysian Heights power outage, Madonna is house hunting in Los Feliz, Silver Lake’s huge spiders, a literary reading at a lingerie store, a coffee shop’s product collab, and a midcentury fixer in Glendale.

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Max Friedlich and Hannah Getts talk “The Holes,” LA’s theater scene, and making live theatre bankable.

Over the past few years, thanks in part to a few key players, the LA theater scene has gained momentum. Alden Ehrenreich bought a former electrical substation in Cypress Park and launched Huron Station Playhouse. Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff’s 49-seat New Theater Hollywood has been staging attention-grabbing experimental plays with unmatched consistency since its debut in 2024. LA Dance Project has “the coolest fucking theater.”

And Echo Park-based playwright Max Friedlich, along with his producing (and romantic) partner Hannah Getts, is behind two of the most buzzworthy new works of the last half-decade.

Though Max and Hannah’s first work — the much-lauded Job, which transferred to Broadway in 2024 — and their new project, The Holes, both originated in New York, the couple is firmly based in LA, where they live, work, and (if all goes according to plan) hope to produce theater in the not-too-distant future. I called them this week to discuss The Holes, working together as a couple, the challenge of creating profitable shows, and the prospect of making theater in LA. Below is our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and conciseness.

First of all, tell me about The Holes. The plot has been kept pretty secret, but I’ve heard it’s wild.

Max: I started working on this play when I was in eighth grade, so I was 14. I had been a really insecure kid and my mom got me into theater through LARPing, which led to regular theater. And when I was in eighth grade I was given an assignment to write a Christmas play — to write about Christmas in the vein of A Christmas Carol. I wrote a very, very, very early version of what this play is, and my wonderful English teacher, Mr. Byrne, called me into his office and told me I should try to be a playwright. He also told me he needed to tell my parents what I was writing about, because it was a little bit of a wellness concern. The play itself really stems from being raised in the most gentrified neighborhood on earth [the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan] and [explores] what it means to be from a place, what obligation we owe the places we’re from.

Hannah: We do want to protect some of the spoilers.

Max: Yeah. It’s also about male friendship and how men — particularly straight men — relate to each other and don’t relate to each other, and the extent to which men will go to not appear weak.

As an artist who happens to be a straight man, do you feel an obligation to address that topic?

Max: I don’t feel an obligation to do anything. There are several things in my life that if I were to write about, I’d feel a sense of responsibility. But I think when you’re from the normative or the dominant group, you often don’t have to examine your gender, your sexuality, your race, or your class to the same extent that people who are historically marginalized do. So it’s twofold — it’s an interest of mine, and it’s an effort to progress past some of the more regressive parts of being a straight white guy.

I’m curious how you’re thinking about The Holes in the context of your previous work, Job, which was so well received and went to Broadway. That obviously creates a lot of opportunity for your next thing, but do you feel the pressure of that success as well?

Max: Yes and no. I mean, I had been bringing people lattes and salads a couple months prior to Job starting. I felt a lot of pressure then — it was like, This is my chance to get out of being an anonymous Hollywood assistant. I haven’t lost the degree of sleep that I did on Job. I think the pressure that I feel now is honestly just, How do we continue to invite the people who changed our lives, how do we let young people who see theater know that this is for them. The audience is who we care about the most. I feel an obligation as someone from a DIY kind of pedagogy to honor how lucky we are, to honor the people who made TikToks about Job. Those kids changed my life and I want to keep making stuff that makes them feel seen.

Hannah, producing theater is not your main gig. You’re moonlighting on top of a full-time TV development job. How do you find the balance?

Hannah: It’s really challenging, I’m not going to lie. You have to carve out as much time as you can on nights and weekends, it’s not for the faint of heart. I was in New York for the weekend and flew back [Sunday night] so I could be at work on Monday morning. But what I will say — and this is cheesy, but I think you can relate — is that it doesn’t feel like work when I’m working on The Holes. I’m exhausted, I didn’t have a weekend, and I’ve been working every day since last month, but getting to create our work together just feels so meant to be. It’s all about time management. I don’t really see friends right now.

How is working together as a couple different from the jobs you do separately?

Max: It’s a dream. Fundamentally, I write from a place of feeling misunderstood, or feeling unseen, even though my life is full of people who I think really understand me. Hannah understands me, and her ability to maneuver the work in such a way that I say what I’m trying to say is exhilarating. There was definitely a love-at-first-sight element [to our relationship]. She’s the smartest executive or producer I’ve ever talked to.

Hannah: There’s this sort of equal playing field in our dynamic that I think is really useful to the work, because I will challenge Max and Michael [our third collaborator]. I can be more blunt with Max than I can be in other working relationships. We met through work initially, before we became romantic partners, and I think that really established the dynamic and the bond. There’s so much inherent trust in knowing we want to move toward the same artistic place and goal.

Max: Especially on the writer’s side, where there’s an image of an executive or producer being someone who’s almost adversarial to the work. This is not some wife guy being like, She’s always right, but I genuinely approach our work thinking Hannah is smarter than me. And knowing that she’s right at least 90% of the time allows, in a really practical sense, a lot of things to happen faster.

I’m curious about the experience of creating theater while living in LA. Does the creative process feel different here than it does in other cities?

Max: I think there’s a lot less stimuli, at least in our lives in Los Angeles, which allows me to focus in a different way. New York is in my bones, I lived 28 of my 32 years there. But I think a problem with the New York theater scene — and I mean no shade by this — is that you see people hit a point where they’re creating for their 45 friends who see a lot of theater. They’re not thinking broadly. There’s a lot of ink spilled about the ability of theater to transform hearts and minds, but a lot of theater is catered to what theater artists perceive as a specific New York audience. One thing I really appreciate about LA is the mindset of like, How do we make this interesting? How do we get this thing in front of as many people as possible? LA has helped us always have one toe in a more populous mindset.

Hannah: I also think being deep in the Hollywood film and TV side of things has helped us navigate the commercial independent theater scene. Producing an independent play is basically like producing an indie film — it’s an independent project [for which] you raise money from independent investors. You hire a team, you get together in a physical space, and you produce the work. The difference is that it’s eight shows a week over a certain period of time, not a film shoot and festivals. We have access to outdoor space and live healthier lives in LA, but the LA mindset has also allowed us to connect those professional dots.

Would you ever produce a show here?

Max: I would love to. I really believe in LA as a great theater city. The community doesn’t feel quite as cohesive, but there’s so much theater in LA and a lot of it is great. We see a lot of theater in LA. Very dear friends of ours run New Theater Hollywood — shoutout Calla and Max — and they’re producing some really interesting work. What Alden is trying to do [at Huron Station] is really great, and they gave us their space to do some internal development work we wanted to do on The Holes earlier this summer. It’s so much cheaper to produce in LA, and there’s less of the small town-ness of New York sometimes.

Hannah: We would love to. I think it requires a little more institutional help to make something in LA. It weirdly feels like a taller mountain to climb than doing it in New York. But the answer is yes. We need to keep theater alive in LA. We went to that play at the LA Dance Project — that’s the coolest fucking theater. It’s the nicest space ever. And as Max always says, LA loves lines. It’s an event-based city, and people will go and line up [for something that feels interesting].

For The Holes specifically, what does success look like?

Max: You can get kind of lost in the sauce with theater, where it’s like, I would really love a good Sarah Holdren review or a New York Times Critic’s Pick or to be nominated for an Obie Award. All of that would be lovely, but I do really want to grow with our investors and have a lasting relationship with them and prove that this weird work can be commercially viable. I really do want to make our money back. So much of theater producing borders on criminality to me — you’re getting nice people to invest in something that you know at the end of the day is not going to make money. It’s a testament to Hannah and our producing team that they’ve created a budget that’s lean and mean enough that we can go to investors and feel really good about our chances of making some money.

Hannah: I completely agree. For one, feeling proud of and getting to stand behind our work is a dream. And secondly, [the goal is] proving out a successful model for this type of art. It was certainly much easier to raise the money this time around, but we still had to push. Every time you stage something it’s a risk. Our investors are people who believe in us, which is genuinely moving, and I would love to create and cultivate that community for future productions.

And lastly, your top three spots on the east side are…

Max: I would love to say Valerie, because it’s in our neighborhood and it holds it the fuck down. It has a real communal, neighborhood feel.

Hannah: I’m going to say Aunt Yvette’s. It’s some of the best food we’ve ever had in LA. I think about that beef dish quite a lot.

Max: And then New Theater Hollywood. I think what they’re doing is so cool, and I’m in awe of their go-getter nature. It’s such a hard thing to do what they do, day in and day out, and they did what I thought was impossible to do at this point in American history, which is start a scene. They just really give a fuck, and I think what they do is incredible.

🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• Jumbo’s Clown Room is temporarily closed while they “take care of a few things behind the scenes.” This makes me nervous (there’s no word on what the “few things” might be) but according to an Instagram story posted this afternoon, the club is hoping to reopen this weekend. Fingers crossed.

• Customers are less than thrilled about Wake and Late’s new AI-generated commercials. The downtown LA burrito destination has cultivated a loyal following over the last eight years — and expanded with locations in Pasadena and Hollywood — but some of those regulars are rolling their eyes hard at the (slightly confusing) AI ads the shop has been rolling out on Instagram. Commenters called the ads “bullshit” and a “bummer.” “My brother in christ your burritos are $25,” one person complained. “You can afford to shoot a real commercial.”

• A widespread power outage in Elysian Heights caused the temporary closure of businesses along Echo Park Avenue this week. Valerie, Canyon, Glowing Juices, and more were all shuttered for more than 24 hours, and many businesses were forced to dispose of a significant amount of spoiled merchandise. The owners of the Chocolate Dispensary raced to acquire a generator as thousands of dollars’ worth of chocolate bars melted on the shelves (they got one in time to avoid the worst of the damage). Several traffic lights were dark for almost a full day, and residents of at least one newer apartment building were stuck inside their homes until the key fob-controlled locking system came back online.

• Madonna is reportedly interested in buying Angelina Jolie’s Los Feliz house. According to the California Post, the pop icon toured the Laughlin Park estate virtually as she considers a return to LA. She’d join a deep roster of notables in the gated community and be the third major name to own the home in question (after Jolie and its original owner, Cecil B. DeMille). Madonna sold her last LA house — way out in Hidden Hills — three years ago, and though she’s never been a Los Feliz resident, she did own the historic Castillo del Lago above Hollywood in the ‘90s.

• From the tip line — following the recent closure of Boojums, Highland Park-based plant store Leaf and Spine will be opening a second location on Echo Park Avenue. It’ll be the third plant-centric retailer in the space most people still associate with the Cactus Store.

• There are a bunch of big spiders in residence at the Silver Lake Reservoir right now. And the Silver Lake Reservoirs Conservancy would like you to know that they’re both harmless and helping to keep the mosquito population under control.

• Echo Park Rising is this weekend, and there are a lot of events happening along Sunset Boulevard. Echo Park Rising is the kind of neighborhood event that makes it hard not to love LA, so you should go if you’re able. This link has the best event rundown I’ve seen, and it’s also worth checking out for all the posters.

• Olivia Rodrigo will be interviewed by director Cameron Crowe at downtown LA’s Grammy Museum on Tuesday, 9/1. This is only the latest in a series of intimate events Rodrigo has hosted in LA in recent months — this one celebrates a new exhibit at the museum dedicated to the music video for “The Cure.” It’s a fun way to engage with fans on a human level, and I think we’ll start to see more artists doing one-off events like this. Tickets for the Tuesday conversation went on sale to American Express members this morning, you can try your luck here.

• Angelino Heights’ much-discussed backyard coffee shop, Granada, is launching a design collaboration with local lighting and interiors brand Ceramicah. Dropping in conjunction with next month’s LA Design Weekend, the collection will consist of “a limited series of cast aluminum fixtures made from hand-thrown forms.” Pricing details for the collaboration haven’t been announced, but if Ceramicah’s current collections are any indicator, these will be splurge pieces.

• Speaking of Angelino Heights, neighborhood-based author Rachel Kushner did an online reading for Heavy Traffic.

• Like everyone else, Cookbook is embracing tradwife culture. The boutique grocery store is slinging Hannah Neeleman’s Ballerina Farm ice cream all day today — but only at the Larchmont location. I would’ve love to know why they decided not to do it in Echo Park or Highland Park (though I have a pretty good idea).

• Eloise Moran is partnering with Feeld to host a literary reading at an Echo Park lingerie store tonight, 8/28. It’s happening from 6-8pm at Le Boudoir, and the readings will explore themes of “modern dating, fantasy, and finding our way back to wanting.” There’ll be drinks and an opportunity to share your own stories, if you so choose. RSVP here.

• This three-bedroom house in Historic Filipinotown is asking half of what it would cost on the other side of the 101. The 1,300-square-foot single-family house (asking $879k) has high ceilings, concrete floors, and a minimalist kitchen. There’s a landscaped rear garden, and it’s a short walk from neighborhood staples like Woon and Doubting Thomas.

• And here’s a fun midcentury fixer in Glendale’s Chevy Chase Canyon. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and sits on the single largest lot currently available for sale in Glendale. There’s a floating spiral staircase, uniquely patterned brick floors, a huge back deck overlooking the hills, and the wildest conversation pit I’ve ever seen. If you’re willing to tackle a project, there’s an opportunity to add a lot of value here.

Have a great weekend, everyone <3

In today’s issue: Emily Dawn Long is working on a store in Echo Park, another backyard coffee shop debuts in Elysian Heights, Kyle Buchanan’s new gig, a brutal Silver Lake-based Instagram account, UTA’s “bummer summer,” a new Italian restaurant coming to Silver Lake, a wild house in South Pasadena, the legal loophole wreaking havoc in Highland Park, and is Tenants of the Trees really getting torn down?

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SCOOP: Emily Dawn Long is about to remake the LA retail scene (alongside two siblings from Kansas City).

Though she’s been designing her namesake label since 2019 (after a brief stint as a stylist for Amber Heard and her then-boyfriend, Elon Musk), Emily Dawn Long’s business has taken off in a big way over the past few years. In 2024, she told the New York Times, “I had $34 in my main bank account.” Now, her clothes and accessories can be seen on everyone from Kendrick Lamar and Brad Pitt to Hailey Bieber and Ayo Edebiri. Pedro Pascal and the east side’s very own Paul W. Downs (and also…a good half of your friends) have been spotted wearing her viral Spoiled Boys shirt this summer, and in June, she was one of ten emerging designers named a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist.

Now, several sources confirm the increasingly ubiquitous New York-based designer is teaming up with Kansas City’s most interesting multi-brand retailer (yes, really) to design an all-new store in Echo Park.

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In today’s issue: clues point to a creative agency taking over Los Candiles, Miranda July rehomes her decades-old plants, $1.2mm in “beautification funds” for the east side, Karen Bass compared street vendors to homeless encampments, an “aperitivo garden” is coming to Bar di Bello, Charles Melton explores Eagle Rock, the greatest sketch show in LA hits the Elysian, a Woon pop-up, Puck partners with the Los Feliz 3, and a house in Mount Washington for under $1mm.

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The writing might be on the (literal) wall at Los Candiles.

I haven’t been able to pin down exactly what’s going on — sources close to the venue have been uncharacteristically tight-lipped, telling me only that there’s an “announcement coming soon” — but there appears to be a changing of the guard in the works at Los Candiles.

The cult-favorite Cypress Park nightclub, locally-owned since its debut in 1979 and famous for its light-up dance floor, topless dancers, and drag shows, has been strangely shuttered for the past several weeks. People close to the club initially claimed a car had crashed into the building’s front doors, requiring a temporary closure for repairs, but…I’m starting to wonder if that’s the whole truth.

A few days ago, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control posted a legally-required public notice of an application for ownership change at the venue, and neighbors (unsurprisingly) freaked out. Several emailed and DMed me, and a few had already done their own research. Per the notice, the entity applying for the ownership change is a limited-liability corporation called VT LCNC LLC, registered to a commercial building at 3149 Verdugo Road in Glassell Park.

A little digging reveals that the other LLC registered to that address is an entity directly tied to Acronym, a self-described “creative firm for ambitious brands who refuse to play it safe.” Acronym chief Vartan Tchekmedyian and his 80 or so employees (also headquartered on Verdugo) are undoubtedly legit, with a roster of clients including Netflix, Adobe, McDonald’s, Gatorade, Google, and Figma. But professional bona fides notwithstanding….what does a creative agency want with a nightclub?

That part’s a little murky. Though Acronym’s involvement in the future of Los Candiles seems clear (or, at the very least, Vartan’s does), no one I talked to seems to know what he and his team have planned for the space. Will they be running the club without changes? Could it be a “new experiential event pop-up space,” as one neighbor posited? For the record, I hope not. It’s not like Los Candiles is a secret — the Rag hosted an event there in April, and Logan Lerman and Analuisa Corrigan recently threw the afterparty for their wedding there — but I can’t help but feel like some things are better left un-messed with (and un-branded). I’ll keep you all posted as I hear more.

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• Miranda July and her longtime gardener, Juan, painstakingly cleared the 23-year-old garden at her Silver Lake studio and rehomed the plants. When Miranda decided to move on from her Berkeley Avenue space after more than two decades, she planned to make sure Juan — who’s worked on the property since before she moved in — was kept on by the next tenant. But then her landlord (incomprehensibly) informed her he’d be clearing the decades-in-the-making garden for something “easier to maintain.” Instead of letting a bulldozer do the work, she and Juan uprooted all the plants and threw a party to redistribute them to neighbors, which is…incredible. She’s also paying Juan through the next year. And her landlord is, no offense, an idiot.

• If you’re looking for something to do tonight, Matt Belloni is introducing a special screening of Election at the Los Feliz 3. I rewatched Election a few months ago and it really holds up. You can snag a ticket for the 10pm screening here ($10 for members of the American Cinematheque, $15 for everyone else).

• City council approved $2mm in aid and “beautification funds” for Eunisses Hernandez’s Council District 1. The district, which encompasses a large swath of the east side including but not limited to Echo Park, Highland Park, Mount Washington, Glassell Park, and Lincoln Heights, will receive $500,000 for food assistance, $300,000 for emergency rental aid, and a total of about $1.24mm for neighborhood-wide beautification efforts spearheaded by the Los Angeles Conservation Corps and the Koreatown Youth and Community Center.

• In his latest profile for Vulture, friend of the Rag Charles Melton took a tour of Eagle Rock. He and writer Molly Lambert stopped by Cindy’s (a great under-the-radar spot because it’s never as full as you think it’ll be) and Vidiots.

• LA28 has officially sold more than 6mm tickets to the 2028 LA Olympics. If you’re one of the many (many) Angelenos who’ve tried to snag passes but come up empty handed, you’ll have another shot next year, when LA28 opens sales for about 4.5mm remaining tickets. Yes — there will ultimately be more than 10mm tickets sold to the LA Olympics. If you live near a venue, now might be a good time to start thinking about renting out your house.

• Construction is underway on a 30-seat “aperitivo garden” in front of Bar di Bello. You’ll now be able to grab drinks alfresco in the courtyard of the Sweetgreen brothers’ Sunset Row development. The restaurant still lacks signage of any kind, so outdoor seating will be the first street-facing indicator that it actually exists. As I’ve said before, the drinks at Bar di Bello are great, the space (designed, like several other spots in Sunset Row, by 22RE) feels expensive, and the food is…fine. I’d be curious to know how Bar di Bello’s business has shifted — if at all — in the months since Café Stella returned to Sunset.

  • And even though people grumble about the food, the east side’s young celebrities are...clearly still going. I think this is where the restaurant’s clubhouse feel and photo-blocking curtains really pull their weight.

• The funniest sketch show in LA is returning for its once-a-year hurrah tomorrow, 8/22. Last year’s edition of Night Shift, held in an Eagle Rock event space, was the funniest night of sketch comedy I’ve experienced in a long time. The troupe is upgrading to a real theater — the Elysian — this year, and bringing back almost all of the same cast (plus a few newcomers). Lukas Cox and Kezie Nwachukwu direct, with Liza Babin, Dani Lyle, Sila Puhl, Madi Hart, James Werner, Damya Gurley, Trace Guzman, Jack Greenberg, John Rosenbluth, and Kezie filling out the cast. Tickets are going fast, snag one here before they’re gone.

• Mayor Karen Bass and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman have very different opinions on the Paramount / Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Mayor Bass urged Attorney General Rob Bonta to reach a settlement with Paramount and suggested the merger will ultimately benefit LA’s creative community. The WGA had some strong words in response — as did Nithya, who called the merger “a bad deal for entertainment workers and a bad deal for Los Angeles.”

• Separately, Mayor Bass took time in Wednesday’s mayoral debate to compare LA’s legendary street vendors to homeless encampments. “I do not believe that you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant, period,” she said, claiming that the presence of street vendors “discourages people from going in [to restaurants], just like you shouldn’t have encampments in front of restaurants or in front of schools.” I’m no political consultant, but picking a fight with the neighborhood taco truck seems like a truly terrible way to win over the populace.

• Non-annoying business podcast Odd Lots is hosting a live show in East Hollywood next month. Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway — fresh off of interviewing east side tinned fish mogul (and friend of the Rag) Becca Millstein — are bringing their show to the Vermont Hollywood on 9/17. Silver Lake-based media titans Taylor Lorenz and Hayes Davenport will be the guests. You can snag tickets here.

• Woon will be popping up at Altadena’s Good Neighbor Bar every Sunday for the next six weeks. What could be better than Sunday night woks on the patio? The residency kicks off this Sunday, 8/23 and runs weekly through 9/27.

• This two-bedroom cottage in Silver Lake has the best front yard tree of any house in Los Angeles. Probably. Regardless, it’s the kind of tree children’s books are written about. (Per the listing, it’s a Moreton Bay Fig.) The pint-sized house is pretty great, too, packing two bedrooms, one bathroom, and sweeping hillside views into just 883 square feet. And it’s all a short (but steep) walk from everything down on Sunset.

• And here’s a two-bedroom midcentury in Mount Washington for less than $1mm. This one also clocks in at under 900 square feet, but it feels bigger than that thanks to huge windows, great light, and wide open views. There’s a living room with flagstone floors and a fireplace, two good-sized bedrooms, and a yard that’s both larger and flatter than you’d expect for a house in the hills. This place will go quickly, act fast if you’re interested.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I’ll see you next week <3

In today’s issue: the clues pointing to a full food menu at Canyon, renderings drop for Echo Park’s new sports bar, the major real estate player buying up El Sereno, literary agents are hitting up the Silver Lake Reading Club, a check-in on the coffee shop in the works for Franklin Village, dog drama at the reservoir, Eagle Rock’s Lauren Sherman is the most feared woman in fashion, Two Rose’s slices-only last hurrah, Nylon’s deep dive on All Time, and a can’t-miss Silver Lake architectural.

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🏠 Do you (or someone you know) have a great house or apartment you want to show off?

DM me. I’m working on a fun new feature and I’d love to talk to you. If you’ve always admired your friend’s place, or your neighbor’s place, or the apartment you once went to with that guy you still think about, DM me about that, too. If you’re not on Instagram, or you’re on a cleanse, you can just reply to this email.

Is Canyon Coffee about to debut...a real food menu?

It’s no secret that Canyon Coffee has never had a full kitchen — though the Echo Park café churns out avocado toast all day long, the most advanced piece of equipment in its closet-sized back-of-house is a toaster oven. The setup has kept Canyon’s offerings focused (beverages, pre-made pastries, and toast) and….occasionally forced evening pop-up tenants (Wilde’s and Bruce among them) to get creative with hot plates. But if recent job postings are to be believed, that could all be changing.

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This season of Chad is weird, heartfelt, and fun — co-creator and star Glen Powell compared the new episodes to a Safdie brothers film — and I think Michael Waldron and Adam Fasullo are building something special at Anomaly. The energy at Vidiots reflected that, and I’m excited to see what they do next.

Tonight I’m headed to Café Stella and El Prado; tomorrow I’ll be at Barra Santos and the Rose Bowl.

In today’s issue: Pierce Abernathy on why LA has the best food, a 10-year-old label opens its first retail location in Silver Lake, I Love LA is filming in Echo Park, food is (still) rotting in Boyle Heights, S.P.A is hosting a group sauna session in Tujunga, you could get $600 to ditch your car for five weeks, the How Long Gone boys launch an awards show, competing accounts of the local cinema resurgence, and a great house in Montecito Heights.

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Pierce Abernathy thinks LA’s the superior food city.

Over the past few years, few food world personalities have captured the public’s attention quite like Pierce Abernathy. Since coming to prominence in the pandemic era, the former BuzzFeed employee and media strategist has developed a cultish following predicated as much on his unique position in the culture as it is on his cooking content. There aren’t many food world figures who’ve been profiled in the New York Times, walked the runway for Gucci, and almost single-handedly created a prevailing male archetype. Now, after more than half a decade on the internet, he’s taking his influence to the presses — he’ll release his first cookbook, Every Leaf, Every Stem, on 8/18.

Though Pierce lives in New York, he’ll be in LA on 8/27 for a one-night-only dinner at Stir Crazy. Earlier this week, we hopped on a call to discuss his career beginnings, his concerted pivot from fashion, the challenge of making a print product, and his favorite spots in LA.

Hello hello! How are you, how’s the east coast?

I’m good, I’m actually up in Hudson. I’m here for my friend’s thirty-first birthday. For some reason thirty-one is a special year and he’s doing a three-day birthday celebration. But it was a good excuse to go upstate.

Have you always been in New York?

I came here after college, so from like 2016 on. I’m from Kentucky, and I went back for a year and a half during the pandemic. But other than that I’ve been in New York. Are you from LA?

No, I’m actually from Pennsylvania.

Oh, cool. My mom’s from Williamsport.

I’m curious — you had several full-time jobs out of college. You worked in video production, you worked as a strategist. Was the transition to food and social media an intentional thing or a complete accident?

This might be a long answer. I feel really lucky because the jobs I had after college — I use all the skills I learned at those jobs today. I always wanted to work in food, and BuzzFeed was the second job I got out of college. That was a weird time, but what I liked so much about working there was that the role of video producer was developing recipes, shooting recipes, editing recipes, cooking on camera. It was really fun even though the food was atrocious. It was the 2016 era of food porn — we’d do anything that involved a buzzword. And then I ended up working in a restaurant for a bit because I was so interested in the food part. I kind of thought I’d leave New York and work at a restaurant in another city because New York was so expensive. But then I broke my foot and ended up doing freelance video editing and working as a strategist for an influencer agency. I’d be the person sending emails to creators being like, Do you want to work with Patrón? Which was great because as soon as I started doing stuff on my own, I knew how to negotiate those deals. I don’t need an agent.

Was there a specific moment that pushed you into creating your own content?

The biggest catalyst to being vulnerable on the internet was the pandemic and moving back to Kentucky. For me, there was this clear separation between being a line cook or a chef at a restaurant and creating food media. There was a lot of ego around that. I kind of thought I had to pay my dues as a line cook and do that whole thing before I could ever have the authority to show my cooking in a public way. But when the pandemic hit, that separation became more fluid. And at that point, I thought I was done with New York. I was living in Kentucky with my parents, cooking them dinner every night, and I had literally nothing to lose. Those people in New York were never going to see me again.

Obviously, a physical book is a very different beast than digital media. You’re not aiming for virality in the same way, and it’s not iterative — you’re creating a concrete final product. Was that a challenge?

I think [when it comes to a cookbook] everyone wants to put something out that their peers will be proud of, or that the people they admire would want to put on their coffee table. I was thinking up all these different routes for my pitch, and they were all terrible. So ultimately I was like, I think I just have to dive deeper into what’s already working. There’s also something weird and scary about a book in that the timeline is so extended — for mine, it was three years from signing with the publisher to the book coming out. And it’s a physical thing, it’s going to live forever. So you want it to feel like something that’ll last forever. It can’t be trendy, the design has to be right. Ultimately, I hope it’s something that maybe allows me to connect with people I haven’t been able to connect with through social media.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned working in food media?

That everyone can have a story and a POV, and everyone can approach cooking in such a different way. You can have someone who’s really interested in generational cooking from a specific culture, or someone like me who’s really interested in the microbiome of the ingredients, who’s interested in the science behind it. And no one’s ever going to make the same thing twice, even if it’s the same recipe. There’s an inherent newness to food that gets me really excited. I’m someone who grew up really into fads — I’d be into skateboarding for a year, then I’d be obsessed with rock climbing — and I remember being worried that that was going to carry over into my career. Like, maybe I’d do video stuff for a year and then want to go be a painter. But I think the newness of food is what’s kept me interested and excited for so long.

Conversely, what’s the most annoying thing about the food world?

It can be a lot of talking to people who already agree with you and connecting with people you’re already interested in. Sometimes there’s a lot of critiquing in a way that’s not the most valuable. And then just the food porn of it all. I started doing food videos on Instagram right when Reels dropped, and now we’re six years from that and so much of the food content on Instagram feels like AI slop. There’s no unique POV, it’s just like, How do we go viral?

Do you see yourself as a journalist?

No, I don’t. I want my audience to be interested in the things that I geek out over. There are things that I do that maybe feel a little more journalistic, but it’s always just, you know, being excited about broccoli or being excited about regenerative farming.

You’re known for being a clotheshorse. How have you balanced the food and fashion elements of your career?

Food and fashion are both very much a part of the culture, and I think — consciously or subconsciously — I saw an opportunity to be more in the zeitgeist through being involved in fashion. It’s been interesting, but I feel like I’m separating myself from it a bit. The fashion world is kind of an all in or all out game. I love clothes and I love being involved, and it’s been fun to hijack some dollars to do cool things, but I don’t like cooking fashion parties at all. It’s such a bummer, and so much food is wasted. They expect steak and potatoes, and it’s like…Why did you hire me? I’m not going to cook steak and potatoes.

Fashion people are intimidating.

Yeah.

Tell me about the dinner coming up at Stir Crazy.

I’ve known Macklin for quite a while now and I’m super jazzed. The last thing I wanted to do [for a book tour] was sit in a bookstore and talk to someone. I want to have fun, and I want to work with restaurants and bars and people I look up to. I love Macklin’s cooking, and I love Stir Crazy’s style and approach. They’re going to do mains inspired by recipes in the book, and I’m going to be doing all the desserts and hanging out.

You’ll have some down time here in LA in the middle of the tour. What’s your favorite thing about LA?

Well, for one, the produce is a hell of a lot cheaper than it is in New York. Even at the farmer’s market, it’s crazy. You can also go two hours in any direction and be in the craziest nature. It’s so beautiful and vast and insane. And my other take, which I’m not sure is that original, is that LA is a better food city, New York is a better restaurant city.

Elaborate…

In LA, you can be like I’m just going to eat tacos this week and have the best tacos of your life. Or you can be like I’m just going to eat Thai food and have the best Thai food. You can get all of the best food possible, and the ingredients coming in are clearly better. But that doesn’t mean the dining experiences are always incredible. If you want a nice, fine-dining, martini night out, New York is the place to do it.

Finally, your top three spots on the east side are…

There’s this Armenian place in Glendale called Zhengyalov Hatz, and they only serve one thing. It’s basically an herb-stuffed flatbread — they stuff it with ten to twelve different greens and herbs and cook it. It’s so delicious. I love to go to Sapp Coffee Shop. And then the vibe at The Prince is sick. It’s iconic and so unique, and it feels like old LA. You really feel like you’ve been transported into a different world.

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• RC Outdoor Supply’s first brick-and-mortar retail location debuts tomorrow, 8/15 in Silver Lake. Twenty-seven-year-old Reese Cooper’s cult-favorite brand celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and now you’ll be able to shop the goods in person. It’s in the Sweetgreen brothers’ Sunset Row development, in a storefront previously occupied by Malin & Goetz. WWD announced the opening as an “exclusive” this morning, but you heard it first in the Rag last week.

• Lineage Logistics will (unsurprisingly) miss today’s city-imposed deadline for food waste removal at its burned-out Boyle Heights warehouse. Per company reps, Lineage believes it has until next Friday to clear out all the rotting, stinking, rodent- and insect-attracting waste. Sure. I’m not sure any other company has gone from obscurity to infamy (and, frankly, near-universal loathing) in such a short amount of time.

• From the tip line — I Love LA is filming at an apartment on Laveta Terrace in Echo Park today. No word on which cast members are onsite or what scenes are being filmed.

• If you have any intel on the identity of the Reservoir Horse Girl, you know where to find me. The people really (really) want to know. I think we can find her.

• LA Metro will pay you $600 to ditch your car (for five weeks). Up to 2,000 LA households will be given the chance to earn $600 for keeping their car parked. If you’re a multiple-vehicle household, you just need to leave one car in the driveway; if you only have one, you’ll need to go totally carless. Could be a good time to carpool or test out your public transit options in advance of the Olympics?

• Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder will perform live and in character as Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels at the Fonda Theatre tonight. The 7:30pm show is unfortunately already sold out, but the live staging, titled “Deborah Vance: Friends & Enemies Live!,” represents the first (and likely last) time the Emmy-winning Hacks stars will appear as their characters in public.

• S.P.A. is hosting a summer bathing club at Descanso Garden Spa in Tujunga on Monday, 8/17. It’s part hang, part coworking session, part soak and sweat, and it’s all happening from 5pm-late at 7226 Foothill Boulevard. Go hang out with Courtney, it’ll be fun.

• Everything about Neon is cool...except for the fact that its new office is in Santa Monica. An executive at another influential media outfit recently told me that his company had been planning on a move to Beverly Hills...until he realized almost every single one of his employees lived east of the 101. The company in question chose to settle further east, employees love it, and it’s becoming an extremely desirable place to work. I’m always surprised by how many companies in LA aren’t going where the talent is, and I think we’re due for a correction. (Location aside, Neon’s office is really nice.)

• Will the LAX people mover ever open? According to officials, the long-awaited Skylink train is “99% done.” Last I heard, it was completely finished and undergoing tests, so who knows what the truth is. Whatever the case, the heavily-scrutinized project is barreling towards multiple bond-related deadlines and could soon be at risk of default. And LAXit — or a really good friend, or an Uber Black — will be your only way out of LAX for at least a little while longer.

• Jason Stewart might be the king of Glendale, but he’s hosting an awards show (with Chris Black) in New York. We’ll forgive him, because building a real-world event around a podcast — no matter how popular — is very difficult and extremely impressive. I’m looking forward to the Goneies, produced by Talkhouse and taking place on 9/15. Will Karolyn be dressing the VIPs?

• The Hollywood Reporter ran a story on the resurgence of LA’s independent cinemas.

• And Eater…also ran a story on the resurgence of LA’s independent cinemas. I’m not trying to sound snarky here — the fact that Angelenos are so excited about seeing movies (and care so deeply about the moviegoing experience) is awesome.

• Here’s a great three-bedroom cottage in Montecito Heights for just under $1.2mm. It has a charming shingled exterior, a beadboard kitchen, and sweeping views from its hillside perch. There’s also a multi-level deck and a studio with a separate entrance. Someone could be very happy here.

• I’ve always loved the units at the Los Feliz Towers, and this is a good one. It’s on the second floor, so it doesn’t have the panoramic views of the upper levels, but I actually like the feeling of being in the trees. It has one legal bedroom, but there’s a flex space that could function as a second, and some good furniture could make this place genuinely cool.

Have a great weekend, everyone <3

In today’s issue: the hottest accessory at the reservoir is a horse, the legendary LA diner coming to Silver Lake, a new menswear store on Sunset, there are 20,000 vacant lots in Los Angeles, the Hotel Lucile gets delayed again, the coyote dividing Atwater Village residents, Adam Weisblatt writes a book, a new coffee and sandwich shop on Silver Lake Boulevard, and a $2.6mm penthouse at the Americana (yes, really).

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The new hot girl accessory at the reservoir is…a horse.

On a given afternoon, one might bring sunscreen, a baseball cap, or a dog to the Silver Lake Reservoir. I’ve seen a leashed cat once or twice. On Sunday, a (currently unidentified) woman forever shifted the paradigm by bringing her pony. Below are some thoughts from neighborhood resident Jon-Kyle Mohr, who witnessed Reservoir Horse Girl in all her greatness.

• I passed a horse trailer behind a Land Rover on Silver Lake Boulevard and thought, Huh? Wow. I pulled up to the meadow to rest in the limited amount of available shade, and a few minutes later, a girl walks into the meadow with a pony.

• She was walking the pony in the meadow, which is a dog-free zone, but I guess this is a loophole.

• The horse girl gets a bad rap — it’s [an identity] mostly women participate in, and it’s unfairly scrutinized compared to the running or cycling bro. I was on a bike ride before this, which is basically the boy equivalent of being a horse girl. And I had my bike in the meadow, so what’s the difference here? I’m Silver Lake Meadow pony girl, too. If anything, she’s just doing it better.

• My friend grazes sheep on Kite Hill in Mount Washington and I think [he and Silver Lake Meadow pony girl] should go on a date. It’d be a huge moment for the Los Angeles animal kingdom.

• This is exactly what my family in Tennessee imagines Los Angeles to be, and they’re right. Los Angeles is the land of dreams, and if your dream is to walk your pony around the reservoir, you’re in luck.

All signs point to a legendary late-night diner’s east side debut.

After the closure of LA restaurant legend Lien Ta’s All Day Baby in late 2024, the corner storefront at 3200 Sunset Boulevard was briefly home to a doomed location of the regional burger joint Heavy Handed (according to one Redditor, it had “the grossest exterior of any resto ever”). Since April, the space has been vacant. But according to several sources and some very IYKYK teaser posters, the corner’s months-long hiatus will soon end — with the unexpected second location of a truly legendary LA diner.

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In today’s issue: Addison Byrd discusses being original (and straight) in the design world, the coolest local tennis brand you’ve never heard of launches tomorrow, Mohawk General is renovating, Nikki Finke’s book is being published posthumously, there’s a new coffee shop inside Bar Bandini, a park debuts under the Sixth Street Viaduct, an $849k three-bedroom, and local real estate agents are hiring brand managers.

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Addison Byrd is allergic to “everyone doing the same thing.”

Over the past year or so, I’ve imagined the Addison Byrd version of my house more times than I can count. That project doesn’t exist (yet), but here’s what Addison has done: after cutting his teeth as a dealer and in-house designer at MIDCENTURYLA, he branched out on his own to design a series of private residences, including this one for Lizzy McAlpine. He’s currently hard at work on his first hospitality commission (it hasn’t been announced, but it’s one people who read this letter will be very excited about), and he’s forever trawling furniture auctions and tweaking his ever-evolving personal residence in Echo Park.

I grabbed coffee with him recently to hear more about making it in design, creating for himself, and being the rare straight guy in a decidedly gay industry.

Let’s start with the obvious — how’d you originally get interested in design?

As a kid I was obsessed with scouting. It was always about finding that one thing. But we didn’t have a ton [of money], and if I wanted something I’d have to go find it in my garage. I moved to LA in 2019 and I was working in retail, and I became obsessed with furniture by this one particular designer. There was really only one guy who sold it, and it was this guy at a place in North Hollywood called MIDCENTURYLA. I went and met him, and we just gabbed. He could tell that I was really interested in the world of furniture and interiors, and he offered me a job.

What was your role there?

At first it was just helping with social media, merchandising, photographing, and general sourcing. But eventually I started putting together shoots on my own. He was a little controlling, so I’d post without telling him. I made a TikTok account, and I only told him about it after I sold a $20,000 sofa through it. When I started, I think he had somewhere around 30,000 followers, and when I left he had more than 200,000. It was crazy. At our best we were doing $1 million [in sales] a month. We were soaring. It was such a good crash course in learning about scale, what looks good together, how to design. But it was also brutal at times — we were moving a hundred pieces of furniture every day and feeling like shit at night.

You went out on your own at a relatively young age. Walk me through that decision.

I met a lot of people through the showroom, and the original idea was to start running an interiors firm through [that job]. I pitched it, and we went back and forth about what it would look like, but ultimately we just couldn’t get it over the line. So I left and went to Swike for a stint — at that point I was too scared to go out on my own — and ended up meeting Lizzy [McAlpine]’s manager through a project we were planning on doing there. That project didn’t end up happening, but we got along, and a few months later I ran into her and she asked if I would do Lizzy’s house. I decided to leave my job and go for it, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. [Lizzy] knew what she wanted, but she also let me lead from a design perspective. And so many opportunities came out of that project.

How would you describe your personal aesthetic?

I’m a little all over the place. I feel like I’m just generally always trying to buy things that I like for myself. And the intent is to eventually work them into a project, whether it’s now or later. It all starts with things that I get excited about.

As a designer for hire, how do you balance your taste with your client’s preferences?

It’s really hard. I always want to push for something interesting and special, but that requires a certain level of trust. Sometimes you end up in a position where you feel like you’re just coordinating the client’s decisions, and that makes it hard to do anything interesting or special.

Why do you choose to work in LA, and what about living here inspires you?

I think it’s easy to stand out here, just because everyone else is doing the same thing. There’s a formula that feels a little copy/paste: you open a coffee shop or a bar and it has wood-paneled walls and aluminum surfaces. Everyone has a Noguchi lamp. It’s not bad, but at this point it’s just like, Oh, you did it again? I think it’s inspiring to be novel, and I’d rather offer something a little more interesting.

What’s it like being a straight guy in an industry dominated by the gays and the girls?

I was having a conversation with a client the other day, and we were joking about how, if I was gay, I could just walk into a room, say something’s cunt, and walk out. I think I’m in one of the only industries where I’m in the minority as a straight white guy. But I like the challenge. I like to prove that it’s not black and white. And my best friend, who helps me with a lot of the coordination, is gay. He’s pretty hands-on, and he balances me out.

Is there anyone whose career you really admire or aspire to?

It’s not necessarily other interior designers — it’s more tastemakers. I’m realizing a lot of my projects straddle those two [practices]. I can offer full-scope design, but I can also do smaller projects. It seems like a lot of rich people just want to know they’re making the right decision. They want to feel comfortable spending money. I don’t always need to fully design their house, I can have some fun as a consultant. There’s this guy Gordon Watson — that guy knows what’s good.

What’s your dream project?

A little ten-room hotel in Europe.

And your top three spots on the east side are…

I’ve been going to Grá for like six years. I love a place that I can count on being consistent, with staff that’s warm, and a well-informed wine list. Chef Kenji at Kenbey Sushi is the kindest, and omakase is a safe choice with him. And as someone who loves a sloppy, fat burger, especially one I can walk from my house to get, the Ode to MOS burger at Ototo is always calling to me. They also make their version of a corn dog for Dodgers home games, which is the only redeeming quality of a Dodgers game disrupting my life.

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• The soon-to-open park under the Sixth Street Viaduct looks awesome. The new 12-acre park connects Boyle Heights to the Arts District and includes athletic fields, playgrounds, public plazas, sports courts, a skate park, performance venues, landscaped gardens, and a coffee shop. The park cost $62mm and was designed by the landscape architects at Hargreaves Jones. Unsurprisingly, neighbors are worried about who’s actually going to take care of the park, given the incessant vandalism that’s plagued the bridge above over the past few years. A business improvement district in the works proposes taxing local businesses to fund security patrols and cleanup efforts, and the city is separately in conversations with independent maintenance firms (though no firm decisions have been made on that front).

• Highland Park gourmet grocery store Sip Snack has a new home. And it’s just a few doors down from the store’s original location at 5110 York Boulevard. Owner PJ Roden was given only 60 days to find a new home for the business, so I’m glad this one worked out as well as it did.

  • There’s been a lot of retail instability on York recently, and you can read more about it here.

• Per LA Material, we’re about to get our hands on a book by the legendary late entertainment journalist Nikki Finke, the existence of which was previously unknown. Finke, the famously outspoken founder of Deadline, was equal parts beloved and reviled for her brutally honest takes on the entertainment industry — and particularly, her willingness to print even the most salaciously gossipy stories about the people who worked in it. As Finke once said (in a quote unearthed by Matt Hamilton), “You can toe the line, you can skirt the line, or you can say fuck the line.” I’m curious to see how incendiary the book is; one has to assume the news of its existence is making certain entertainment executives more than a little nervous. Whatever the case, it’ll be a once-in-a-generation dump of LA lore.

• Following a much-praised renovation of its mens store, Mohawk General is reenvisioning the women’s side of the business. Construction has commenced, and the women’s store is currently operating from a temporary location down the block at 4041 Sunset Boulevard.

• Big-time LA real estate agents are investing in in-house marketing and brand managers. I’ve always said that being a successful real estate agent in LA is sort of like being a niche celebrity (last I checked, Rob Kallick has 154,000 Instagram followers), and now they have the support teams to match. Gia Casty is currently hiring for a full-time role, Jenna Cooper employs an agent who also focuses on “strategy,” and Kallick’s own team has included a dedicated marketing lead at various times (he doesn’t appear to employ one currently). I think we’ll see a lot more of this as the real estate business becomes increasingly personality-driven — especially when the market rebounds and the cash starts flowing.

• The original Loquat location in Cypress Park is celebrating its fourth anniversary this weekend. All milk brews and cold brews will be $4 tomorrow, 8/8 in honor of the milestone (if you go to the Silver Lake location, it’s still full price).

• The most interesting local tennis brand you’ve never heard of debuts this weekend. Shade Tennis makes tennis shorts and skirts in a variety of crop lengths you’ve never seen before, which is, frankly, brilliant. (They also make tops.) The brand launches at Mohawk tomorrow, 8/8 from 12-5pm; you’ll be able to shop the new collection and get your racket re-strung for free. On Sunday, 8/9 there’s a doubles tournament in Elysian Park from 10am-2pm (with a $500 Mohawk gift card up for grabs for the winners). You should swing by even if you’re not playing — there’ll be a picnic with live music and food for purchase.

• From the tip line — don’t even think about trying to go to David Zwirner’s Melrose Hill location next week. It’d be a perfect activity during the heatwave, but all global locations of the gallery will be closed for the week to give staff members a bit of a summer vacation. The Melrose Hill gallery will reopen on 8/17.

• Vogue World touched down in LA last year (on the Paramount lot), and it’ll stay in California for its 2026 edition. But it’s heading north to San Francisco.

• A daytime coffee shop is now operating inside Echo Park’s long-standing Bar Bandini. After popping up across town for the last year or so, Onul Coffee now has a permanent location behind the bar Wednesdays through Sundays from 7am-3pm. There’s a grand opening party tomorrow, 8/8 from 11am-1pm.

• AD100 design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero is hiring LA-based interior design and architecture interns for the fall semester. You’d work out of a great office in Historic Filipinotown and (probably) get invited to cool parties.

• Downtown LA might be stuck in a period of…struggle, but downtown Burbank is thriving. I don’t know if I totally buy this comparison, given that downtown LA is a sprawling urban core and downtown Burbank is a bit like a giant shopping mall. Yes, downtown Burbank is often hopping, but…so is the Americana. (Similarly, both are places I’d only ever go to for the movie theater.) There is, however, an argument to be made for the strength of municipal engagement in downtown Burbank, which is clearly much more robust than it is in downtown LA right now.

• Here’s a great three-bedroom in Montecito Heights for $849k. Getting an east side three-bedroom at this price point usually requires sacrificing design on some level, but not this time. I’m a fan of the plywood accents, the landscaping, and also the views. You could buy this and hop right over to Hermon’s to celebrate.

• And if you’re not quite ready to settle down, you could rent this house in Los Feliz with three of your best friends. There’s a living room with vaulted ceilings, a big kitchen, and a multi-tiered backyard with an outdoor fireplace and a hot tub. It’d be a great place to live like a functioning adult…but also throw some great parties every so often.

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Tonight I’m headed to El Prado, and on Friday I’m headed to the Mouthwash Magazine launch at Marta.

In today’s issue: comparing the development efforts of Zach Lasry and the Neman brothers (plus several new tenants for both), the end of Two Rose, the confirmed replacement for La Fe in Echo Park, a private school’s $200mm sports complex, a new Korean market in Highland Park, the east sider fronting Helmut Lang’s new campaign, Loose might be ending, Aubrey Plaza real estate updates, an art show in response to Taix’s demise, an $899k three-bedroom in Silver Lake, and the craziest house in Pasadena.

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Melrose Hill might be the most interesting retail incubator in America (and the Neman brothers….probably aren’t).

Love it or hate it — and there are plenty of haters, including those who take issue with the neighborhood’s name itself — no one can argue that what’s happening in Melrose Hill isn’t interesting. Billionaire heir Zach Lasry (his dad Marc is worth an estimated $2.2 billion and owns the Milwaukee Bucks) has acquired the lion’s share of the commercial real estate on the blocks surrounding the intersection of Melrose and Western and spent untold millions rehabilitating the neighborhood’s semi-dilapidated historic structures. His focus on restoration, rather than the typical LA developer strategy of razing and rebuilding, means the neighborhood remains uniquely low-rise. (It’s worth noting the obvious here: unlike most developers, Zach can afford to think about a return on his investment in terms of decades, not years.)

What really sets Melrose Hill apart, though, is the selectivity Zach and his team have employed in filling his newly-acquired properties. Over the course of conversations with with Melrose Hill tenants, employees, and real estate sources, many people spoke of Zach’s singular vision for the neighborhood: he knows exactly what kind of tenant he wants (and has been known to offer steeply reduced rent, subsidized interior buildouts, and other perks in order to secure those people), and conversely, what kind of tenant he doesn’t want (allegedly, several chain stores have been denied leases). The past few years have seen the arrival of instant culinary favorites like Ètra, Chainsaw, Little Fish, LA Grocery & Café, and Bar Ètoile; retailers like Pop Up Home and Ending Soon; and a slew of big-name art galleries (including, most notably, the first west coast location of David Zwirner) to an area formerly occupied largely by discount furniture stores.

With the exception of the galleries (and a few other exceptions), almost all of the businesses Zach and his team have brought to Melrose Hill are local operators. They’ve been discovered at ghost kitchens, at east side pop-ups, and in many cases (this is going to sound like hyperbole, but it’s not) given life-changing opportunities to launch brick-and-mortar businesses. Melrose Hill’s detractors, including those who decry the neighborhood’s name as an unwanted brand-building exercise, regularly speak to the ongoing gentrification of a traditionally working-class corridor — a completely legitimate argument, to be clear — but there’s no denying that the neighborhood is playing a unique and fascinating role in incubating a new generation of local businesses and entrepreneurs.

It’s also worth comparing Zach’s efforts to those of his closest analogue, the Neman brothers (affectionally referred to as the Sweetgreen brothers) in Silver Lake. Ryan and Daniel Neman — they’re heirs to a Beverly Hills-based textile fortune, and their brother Jonathan is a cofounder of Sweetgreen — have snapped up a staggering percentage of the retail stock in Sunset Junction. Unlike the Melrose Hill team, they’re….decidedly indiscriminate when it comes to tenants. They’ve filled their growing Sunset Boulevard assemblage with corporate tenant after corporate tenant, from New Balance to DS & Durga to Baggu to Free People. According to many in the neighborhood, the brothers are almost single-handedly responsible for the ongoing and unfortunate “blandification” of Sunset Junction. (The Nemans don’t actually live on the east side, which could be part of the problem; Zach Lasry is a longtime Los Feliz resident.)

Whatever the case, there are several new tenants in the works (plus a notable closure) for Melrose Hill and the Neman assemblage:

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In today’s issue: a roundup of the only open houses you should hit this weekend, Nadia Lee Cohen is searching LA for Joe Exotic-types, Bobo Thai has an opening date in Silver Lake, a new gay bar is open in the Arts District, what to do if you’re thinking of suing the Boyle Heights warehouse owner, a job fair at the Hotel Lucile, Echo Park is getting a new bar, Psychic Wines and Tondo are throwing birthday parties, a burger-eating competition with a real prize, and great houses under $1mm.

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These are the only open houses you should hit this weekend.

Over the past few months, I’ve gotten dozens — maybe hundreds — of emails and DMs from readers requesting more real estate content in the Rag. The local listings I throw in at the end of each issue are frequently the most-clicked links in the letter, and east side agents long ago started pitching me their properties for inclusion (don’t worry, I’ll always pick the houses myself). A few weeks ago, a reader reached out to tell me she bought a house she saw in the newsletter. (Wild.) Others have asked me not to feature the homes they’re making offers on.

Whatever the case, the collective appetite for house porn appears to be limitless. So here’s a special-edition issue of the letter featuring a roundup of all the open houses you could (and should) attend this weekend. Most are on the east side, but I’ve also included a fun one that would require a field trip. Happy hunting, everyone.

^1335 Columbia Drive, Glendale

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it forever — Glendale is undervalued, and Adams Hill is one of the most underrated neighborhood pockets in LA. This post-and-beam house designed in 1955 by Ragnvaldur Johnsen is also, simply put, a great house. It has walls of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking sweeping views, wood-paneled ceilings, a phenomenal kitchen, and a lower-level studio space with its own bathroom. There are a lot of steps up from the street, so visiting (not to mention living there) will be a glute workout. It’s open 8/1 and 8/2 from 12-2pm.

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In today’s issue: Tyler Matthew Oyer talks photographing Dior (and not being broke), the scoop on what’s happening at Los Candiles, Karley Sciortino on I Want Your Sex, a pole dancing studio opens in Echo Park, “rocket cash” is upending the real estate market, a canine rescue effort involving 26 firefighters, celebrities at Body Dada, Boyle Heights cold-storage drama, the Dodgers’ owner is under investigation, I Love LA is filming in Echo Park, and a $799k house in Highland Park.

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TYLER MATTHEW OYER is the east side photographer fashion people can’t get enough of.

If you’re remotely interested in fashion (or you’ve been on social media at all over the past few years) you’ve undoubtedly seen the work of Tyler Matthew Oyer. The Highland Park-based multi-hyphenate — he’s a performance artist, musician, visual artist, and writer, to name but a few of his practices — has emerged as one of fashion’s most in-demand photographers as of late, shooting everything from Dior couture to parties in LA to OnlyFans models to Beyoncé.

His LA solo show, “Portraits 2019-2026,” features ​345 photographs — of friends, celebrities, and everyone in between — he’s taken over the past ​seven years. It opened at Night Gallery (2050 Imperial Street) on 7/18 and runs through 8/15.

Last week, I met Tyler for coffee to talk unconventional career paths, creative process, and the tricky calculus of making your passion a career. Here’s our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and conciseness.

You’re a photographer, but you’re also a lot of other things. How would you describe yourself as an artist?

I started in theater when I was a kid, so it’s always been about performance and a public-facing self. Being on stage at five years old, you’re always thinking about limitation, talking about training, giving something to something. So in my core, there’s a performer that’s always been there. I nurtured that throughout my teenage years. And then I had this passion for photography and fashion. It was a secret thing I did in my own world, looking at fashion magazines. It was W, V Magazine, Interview, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair. It was a release into this fantasy world of production — Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, the photos were crazy. Everything was really hyper-fantastical, which is [its own form of] theater. I’ve only recently realized that it makes sense, what I’m doing.

What did you study?

I wanted to study fashion, but my parents thought that was too much of a pivot from what I had already been doing. So I ended up going to school for musical theater. But I always had a problem with directors, and I realized that I wanted to actually be in charge of things instead of just taking direction. So I left the theater program and studied fine art. I knew that in fine art, I’d be able to be creative, and I’d be able to control what that creativity was. I could build my own world.

I studied sculpture and painting, and then I applied immediately to grad school and got into CalArts. At the beginning I was pretty puritanical about not mixing my history with performance with the art stuff. But by the end, when I did my thesis, I had a three-act, 10-person, multi-genre, mixed-media performance theater piece. And then I just kept performing. In the summer of 2012, I made a one-man show, toured it around Europe, and made a lot of connections. I got gallery representation and had some gallery shows. We did Miami Basel, we did art fairs, I sold paintings and objects.

At what point did your focus shift to photography?

In 2019 I was doing a play as part of a residency in Zurich, and I needed props. So I went to a thrift store and found a basket of analog cameras. I just picked one out. It was like €5 and still had film in it. After the residency I went to Berlin to hang out for a week and maybe take some meetings. I had film in this camera, so I just started taking photos of my friends. That was it. Like, Oh, we’re having coffee right now, let me get your photo. And then I put them on Instagram. At some point a friend was like, You’re really good at this, you should make a book. So I made a book in 2021, and people were really excited about it. It sold out, and I was like, Oh, I guess I’m doing photography now. It was right about that time that I got my first Balenciaga job. I never studied [photography], I never planned it.

Were you ever nervous about your ability to execute when you first started getting those Balenciaga-type jobs? Or were you inherently confident in the work?

I think the compliments of people around me being like, You’re good at this gassed me up a bit. I could just be like, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but everyone thinks it’s great, so let’s keep riding that wave. And even though I didn’t study photography, I have a master’s degree in fine art, so I understand aesthetics. And again, I had this personal education of fashion imagery throughout my teenage years. When I’m at a fashion dinner now, I can discuss every element of fashion culture with editors, with writers, with curators, with designers. I’m finally able to put this vast reservoir of fashion knowledge to use.

What, to you, makes a good photo? Can it even be put into words?

Karl Lagerfeld famously said that anyone can take a good photo. It’s a very democratic thing, right? Not everyone can sing, and not everyone can draw well, but everyone can pick up a camera. But now that I’m in it, I can see when there’s magic happening and when there isn’t. I think what makes a good photo is when my subject feels the most sexy or powerful or confident they’ve ever felt. I want you to say, You took my favorite photo of me.

As a freelancer, how do you balance the pursuit of creativity with the very real need for financial stability?

I was a struggling artist for a very long time. Being a performance artist is amazing in terms of cultural clout — people are like, God, you’re so avant, you’re so radical. But I’m turning 40 in six months, and I was like, I don’t want to be broke when I’m 50. I don’t have a trust fund, unfortunately, and I spent a long time working multiple side jobs. A very good friend of mine, who supported my career from the jump, is a producer, and I asked him once — before I was doing photo stuff — if I could work with him. He was like, Well, you need to bring me something. I was like, I’m creative. And he was like, I don’t need that, I need somebody with a skill. In hindsight, I understand what he meant, because now I’m a photographer, I bring that skill to the table, and he can deploy it however he needs to.

Simone Forti, the dancer and choreographer, said something that has always stuck with me. She said — and I’m paraphrasing — Back in the ‘60s, none of us ever thought we’d make a single penny off of our art, so we all worked dumb jobs to pay the bills. And then we made art because we were free to. I think that’s something we need to get real about right now. Not all art is meant to be commercial. That said, you can make it, as long as you angle yourself towards something that is commercial. You just have to figure out how to make yourself useful.

Do you feel like you’ve made it?

That’s a loaded question. I don’t know about that. I feel very proud of the fact that I just shot Dior couture and I have a solo show of my art at one of the coolest galleries in the city, one that I’ve always wanted to show at. I don’t know if that’s making it, but for me the act of doing is the success. I don’t really care whether five people or 500,000 people [like my work]. It’s more like, Do I feel good about what I’ve made?

Where do you want photography to take you over the next five or ten years?

I think the romantic in me doesn’t really want to know. I feel like I’m on a wave that’s really joyful, and I feel very lucky to be doing something people like, and that I can also get paid for. And I love that the work can involve so many people. I can work for a fashion designer, I can work for a musician, I can work for an OnlyFans porn star. There’s true versatility in this job. Now that I’m deep in it, I want to see how I can challenge myself. I feel like I’ve mastered something, and now I’m like, How can I deploy that on a larger scale, or in a different context?

Is there a person or brand you’re still dying to shoot?

I try not to template the future. It’s more like, if you come to me, let’s find a way to make something cool. I shot something for a lighting company this week, and a friend of mine was like, Oh, it’s a surprise they hired you. And I was like, No it’s not, I take cool photos. I’m not holy, you know? I’ll photograph your lighting company, and I’ll photograph Rachel Sennott for Balenciaga. Warhol’s high/low approach to the world is very much a tether point for me.

Other than developing a specific skill, what’s your advice for young creatives who are trying to make their mark?

Don’t be broke, that’s first. I’m not saying don’t be poor — I’m saying if you have to work a job to make money, do it. Because being broke affects your mental health in a way that will ruin everything else. If you can’t afford your rent, you can’t be creative at all. You’re stressed out, you’re depressed, it’s not a productive headspace. Secondly, don’t try to copy what you see someone else doing. Just be inspired. That’s the distinction between something that’s good and something that’s great — no one remembers a copy. And lastly, just try something. You’ll never know if you like something, or if it speaks to you, until you try.

Finally, your top three spots on the east side are…

My go-to restaurant has always been Speranza on Hyperion. Akbar’s the spot, but now that I’m getting a little older, I’m leaning more Eagle. When my mom and sister were in town for my opening, we went to Saffy’s for dinner and then we all went to Akbar afterwards. We walked in and they immediately saw people they knew. It was the best.

East siders are freaking out over a boarded-up Los Candiles.

Cypress Park’s legendary Los Candiles is, hands down, one of the best places to hang out in LA. It’s a nightclub with personality, it’s wholly original, it has a light-up dance floor, and it somehow hasn’t been overrun by the masses. As such, lots of people got nervous when plywood boards went up on the club’s doors this week. My inbox was flooded with emails asking what the boards meant. Could Los Candiles, a few devastated neighbors asked, actually be closing?

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In today’s issue: the east side’s film lovers and culture vultures weigh in on the biggest (re)opening of the decade, a hand grenade forces an evacuation in Eagle Rock, Ètra is finally getting a liquor license, Robby Hoffman hosts a party for a cause in DTLA, the days of the graffiti towers are numbered, the Dodgers hit the White House, and a $799k house in South Pasadena.

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“Hot damn! We’re bringing the Dome back, baby.”

Yesterday, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced the signing of a long-term lease at Hollywood’s historic Cinerama Dome, officially ending six years of unending speculation about what the hell will happen with the Cinerama Dome. The Culver City-based studio will embark on a full restoration of the 956-seat theater beginning next month, with plans to reopen it to the public in 2028. Like it always has, the reopened landmark will host first-run releases, premieres, and film-focused talks and events.

The 14-screen theater complex behind the facility’s namesake dome, formerly operated by the late, great Arclight, will become the newest outpost of Sony’s Alamo Drafthouse chain; though the supplementary screens will offer Alamo’s trademark dine-in experience, the Dome, mercifully, will remain in its classic form. As Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman said so eloquently, “Hot damn! We’re bringing the Dome back, baby.”

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but multiple sources confirmed the deal represents a “major investment” for Sony — and a huge vote of confidence in LA’s theatergoing and entertainment scene. As one prominent filmmaker told me, “I think we can see it as a legitimately positive sign about both the industry in general and about theatrical specifically. Sony doesn’t tend to give a shit about brand-enhancing loss leaders.”

I, for one, am thrilled we’ll be able to return to the Dome in the not-too-distant future. LA’s film lovers, however, are anything if not opinionated. So I decided to ask a murderer’s row of the neighborhood’s most engaged moviegoers and filmmakers what they think of the announcement. Here’s what they had to say.

JENNI KONNER, co-showrunner of Nobody Wants This.

JASON STEWART, co-host of How Long Gone.

I’d like to imagine that two years from now, the Alamo Drafthouse team reopens the Arclight and doesn’t change a thing. They resist the urge to put a Tesla motor in this vintage Aston Martin. Not a single decision gets made by a brain set to “Austin, TX.” Instead, they deputize a Hollywood local, a Chris Chang type, perhaps, to preserve that one-of-a-kind ecosystem where wealthy cinephiles and the civilians who know how to behave around them silently size each other up while passing on that escalator to paradise.

Keep the Dean & DeLuca-style caramel corn in the plastic tubs. Don’t make it habanero bourbon flavored. Hire employees who know more about movies than anyone else and couldn’t care less whether you’ve seen their favorite film.

Most of all, I hope that stretch of Hollywood gets some breath back in its lungs. I miss when a movie ended and the obvious next move was to walk a couple of blocks for a drink or a slice of pie instead of speed-walking to your car.

AMANDA DOBBINS, co-host of The Big Picture, writer of Hobbies.

B.J. NOVAK, actor, writer, and director.

FRIDA PEREZ, co-creator of The Studio.

The nation’s six-year-long nightmare of living without the Cinerama Dome is finally coming to an end. May the light continue to win.

MATT BELLONI, writer of What I’m Hearing, host of The Town.

ELISA KALANI, screenwriter.

I’m so excited. I can’t believe it took this long. Did not realize the rest of the Arclight was going to become an Alamo Drafthouse. I hate that. But happy about the dome still.

KATE BERLANT, actress and comedian.

SEAN FENNESSEY, co-host of The Big Picture, writer of Projections.

I couldn’t be more excited to get the Dome specifically back in my moviegoing life. It’s one of the most special rooms to me — both historically meaningful and still powerful. My adult life as a movie watcher is intertwined with time spent there. The last time I was in the Dome was an FYC event I moderated with Josh and Benny Safdie and Adam Sandler for UNCUT GEMS in January 2020. That would have been a neat anecdote about the end of that relationship with the space, but I’m thrilled it isn’t.

ADAM FASULLO, president of Anomaly Pictures.

MARIE NGUYEN, screenwriter, director, writer of Counteroffer.

PAUL SCHEER, actor and comedian.

ALDEN EHRENREICH, actor and founder of Huron Station Playhouse.

Yay yay yay yay. We’re all ready to go back to the movies — let’s get the fuckin Arclight open!

ADAM FAZE, producer.

ALEX EDELMAN, actor and comedian.

TIM FEDERLE, writer and director.

Long live the theatrical experience!! And Alamo, while you’re bringing back the Cinerama, please also bring back paper and pencil ordering! 🙏 🙏 🙏

KYLE BUCHANAN, pop culture reporter for The New York Times.

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• The Dodgers are visiting the White House today. Fans are divided on this one, obviously, and shortstop Mookie Betts is skipping the visit “to hang out with the fam.” The visit would appear to contradict the team’s recent $1.1mm donation to immigration rights organizations, but it seems that when given the choice between appeasing and eschewing the president these days, organizations are overwhelmingly choosing the former.

• Eagle Rock residents were temporarily evacuated last night after a homeowner found a grenade in his backyard. An unnamed man called police after finding the military-style device on his property, and a mandatory evacuation lasted about three hours while a bomb squad combed the area. Residents were cleared to return to their homes around 10:30pm. No one was harmed, thankfully, and as of now there’s no intel on how the grenade…got there in the first place.

• Ètra is getting a liquor license. Per Sophia Rivka Rossi’s great newsletter, it’s happening sometime this fall. Huge news for an establishment that currently serves just beer and wine. Ètra is one of the most reliable watering holes in town — try not to run into a friend on a Thursday night — and this feels like a game changer in the vein of Barra Santos’s level-up earlier this year. See you on Western for dinner and a martini.

• Downtown’s infamously graffiti-covered towers are finally getting cleaned up. The Crypto.com Arena-adjacent buildings are getting a new owner, who’s agreed to start cleaning up the complex’s paint-covered exteriors even before the sale officially closes. Interestingly, the city made the cleanup a requirement in its approval of the $517mm bankruptcy sale.

• The Flamingo Estate team used the staircase at their Eagle Rock mansion to announce a new rug collection. From a creative standpoint, Richard, Aaron, and their east side-based team have been cranking lately. I’m still waiting on my invite to the house, guys.

• From the tip line — exterior signage is up at the newly expanded Heavy Manners Library in Echo Park.

  

• There are a lot of neighborhood events coming up this week...

  • Robby Hoffman is hosting another edition of her Sexy Beast party in DTLA next Wednesday, 7/29. The outdoor event will be hosted at Night Gallery (2050 Imperial Street) from 4-7pm, and all proceeds will support Planned Parenthood’s LA chapter. You can snag tickets here.

  • Not There Gallery is debuting their 2026 “Chinatown salon” this Saturday, 7/25. The salon features works by more than 25 LA-based artists, many of whom you’ll be familiar with. There’s an opening reception from 3-7pm on Saturday (437 Gin Ling Way), and the exhibition is on view through 8/22.

  • Evening on the Farm is hosting a summer dinner at Dada in Echo Park on Sunday, 7/26. It’ll be a “five-course Italian-inspired Sunday feast” paired with a selection of natural wines and spritzes. The early seating is sold out, but the 8pm seating has a few spots left — grab one here.

  • Akila is having a plant sale at their 22RE-designed store in Silver Lake this Saturday, 7/25. Buy a pair of sunglasses, get a free plant from Andrew De La Rosa. I lost my Akilas at the Keep the Meter Running premiere last month, which was devastating, but now I know they give you 20% off replacements. The plant sale is happening from 12-6pm at 3300 Sunset Boulevard (while supplies last).

• From the tip line — east siders aren’t thrilled about the Great White location coming to Silver Lake. More than a dozen readers have reached out to bemoan the corporatization of Sunset Junction in recent weeks, with several explicitly mentioning Great White’s impending debut on Sunset Boulevard. The storefront in question was most recently home to another chain — Shake Shack — so this one’s not a drastic change, but the chatter about Silver Lake’s chain stores is starting to reach a fever pitch. Take it up with the Sweetgreen brothers, guys. Whatever the case, the yet-to-be-announced Silver Lake Great White (which I first told you about back in December) will be the scandal-plagued chain’s seventh, joining existing outposts in Venice, West Hollywood, Larchmont, Studio City, and Brentwood, plus a Manhattan Beach restaurant set to open this month.

• If you’re looking for a project in the heart of Los Feliz Village, this house might be for you. It has two bedrooms, one bathroom, endless charm, and a huge backyard. It also needs a ton of work. But it’s asking just over $1mm (you might be able to get it for less) and it’d be worth a lot more post-renovation. Just don’t ruin it with wide-plank floors, please.

• And here’s a very cool loft in South Pasadena for $799k. It’s not huge, but it’s unique for LA and would be a very fun place to host a dinner party. It’s also in what’s possibly the most underrated neighborhood in all of Los Angeles.

In today’s issue: all the signs pointing to an unexpected new location of Canyon Coffee, a new batch of personals and classifieds, Silver Lake’s rooftop pizza joint bites the dust, the incoming Lebanese spot from the Seco team, a bear in Glendale, a newsletter highlighting LA’s live theatre scene, the Warner Music crew can’t wait for the debut of a big-league steakhouse in the Arts District, and a three-bedroom in Mount Washington for less than $1mm.

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SCOOP: Canyon Coffee’s unexpected east side expansion.

Though this tip (which I’ve received from a few different readers) hasn’t been officially confirmed, all signs seem to be pointing to a long-awaited second east side location of Canyon Coffee. After an initial expansion attempt in Altadena was scuttled by last year’s Eaton Fire, owners Ally Walsh and Casey Wojtalewicz shifted their focus to New York, where they opened a second standalone café in Brooklyn this past March. (They also run an employee-only café at Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters and launched a store-within-a-store at Design Within Reach’s Chicago flagship in June).

When I talked to Ally and Casey in October, they were upfront about their growth ambitions but demurred when asked for specifics on location, saying only that they were sticking to the east side and that the new spot would “not [be] in Santa Monica.” Now, permits filed with the city — and a telling contractor choice — seem to confirm a new café in a slightly unexpected east side neighborhood.

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In today’s issue: a look inside Silver Lake’s most prominent (and mysterious) new restaurant concept, reporting from the east side’s third annual hot dog-eating competition, Wi Spa’s new rules, the Hotel Lucile grand opening party, a new coffee shop in Little Tokyo, The Dare’s big LA moment, Proof launches evening hours, Giampiero Tagliaferri is hiring, “Save Angelino Heights” discourse, the Greekmans team’s big swing, and a 1948 log cabin in Elysian Heights.

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EXCLUSIVE: A look inside Sunset Junction’s (strangely mysterious) new restaurant concept.

Several months ago, I wrote that the former Bar Moruno and Causita (and before that, Kettle Black and Sawyer) spaces in Sunset Junction would soon become home to two different concepts from the same owner: Shann Shann will take over the erstwhile Bar Moruno spot, and Bobo Thai is replacing the extremely short-lived Causita next door.

Teaser signage went up outside the spaces back in December, but further details have been curiously scant — until now. Thanks to a well-placed source, the Rag has exclusive interior photos of (and a bit more information on) the new restaurants.

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In today’s issue: big-name and upstart creative directors sound off on what the job actually means (and their approach to money), the last Burrito King in Los Angeles closed last week, Clare V absolutely did not build a “catio,” a new members’ club debuted in downtown LA, a Boyle Heights teenager got $20mm from the city, Organic Oren is planning an east side pickup location, the Angelenos calling anti-firework sentiment “liberal lunacy,” and an Atwater Village diamond in the rough.

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“Creative directors,” in their own words.

Though Los Angeles is, at its core, a city of reinvention, several constants endure. The ocean is to the west, for example, and the best tacos are at a cart on the corner. You can bring your own drinks to the Hollywood Bowl. The Chateau has bad food, but good vibes. And “creative directors” abound.

Almost everyone in LA has, at one point or another, been envious of a creative director (the lifestyle!), rolled their eyes at one (“is that…a real job?”), admired one’s work, or worked with one.

Creative directors can be found overseeing culture-defining shoots, grabbing drinks at Triste, or sitting at Chainsaw while most Angelenos sit at their desks. Most are extremely talented, and some have rich parents.

In the year or so I’ve been writing this letter, I’ve gotten some form of So what does a creative director actually do? in my inbox dozens of times. Are they all trust funders? some have asked. How do they make money? In an effort to answer these questions once and for all, I asked a bunch of working creative directors myself.

What follows are answers from Jen Brill, Jop van Bennekom, Paulina De La Paz, Ollie Shaw, John Patrikas, Madeline Montoya, Jonathan Burford, and many more.

JOHN PATRIKAS

Independent creative director, designer, and creative consultant

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On Sunday I saw Troye and the truly indefatigable Good World crew at a dinner in support of Tsu Lange Yor’s new collection and last night I had dinner at Queen’s (great as always, but they need to figure out their AC situation). Tonight I’m headed to A Tí.

In today’s issue: your chance to place a personal ad, the hybrid coffee shop / film lab coming to Frogtown, Amanda Dobbins’ definitive LA movie theater ranking, microdrama headaches, Mohawk’s house line is doing big numbers, Silver Lake’s Hotel Lucile is delayed (again), Quentin Tarantino is committed to coffee, Seedy serves up a July 4th special, and a $1mm house from 1912.

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Want to submit a (free!) personal or classified ad?

Last week, wrote about the Rag’s personals and classifieds in The Atlantic. It made me realize I hadn’t published any in a minute, so we’re changing that. Submit your ads below, and don’t hesitate to get creative with the copy.

There’s a hybrid coffee shop / film lab coming to Frogtown.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten several questions about the space at 1809 Blake Avenue in Frogtown, adjacent to Frogtown Jiu-Jitsu. It’s been under construction for the better part of a year, and it’s been mostly complete for a while now. As said in the comments last week, “It’s looked like it’s been on the brink of opening for 6 months.” Pretty much everyone has deduced that the space is going to be a coffee shop, but with its red lacquered floors, a heavy duty sound system, and club-like lighting, it’s also…not your typical coffee shop.

As it turns out, it’s going to be a hybrid coffee shop and analog film lab called Karmir. It’s the third location for the outfit, but there’s a reason you’ve never heard of it — the other two are in Yerevan, Armenia and Belgrade, Serbia. The team clearly has a budget, with the London-based architecture firm DA BUREAU on board to design the space; in addition to the lacquered floors and sound system, the barrel-vaulted storefront includes a suite of custom steel furniture, occasionally aggressive red lighting, and a full-fledged film development operation. The coffee is by Lumen, a fellow Eastern European brand you’re already familiar with if you live in Highland Park.

The bet here, obviously, is that the east side’s film bros will choose Karmir as a one-stop alternative to Maru and the photo lab. I kind of think making multiple stops over the course of a day is okay — and is, in fact, what creates a thriving community — but I’m curious to see how this one plays out.

(And a completely unsolicited aside for anyone considering opening a café: I don’t think everything needs to feel so designed. People love Wilde’s because the space is simple and elegant and the focus is on the food. A single chipped tile does more for a space than eight feet of stainless steel.)

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• Eagle Rock’s reigning queen of movies Amanda Dobbins published the definitive ranking of Los Angeles movie theaters. Based primarily on the parking setup at each. I didn’t realize how badly I needed this list until it was in front of me and I couldn’t stop re-reading it. It’s, frankly, a resource we should have to pay for, but Amanda’s a beneficent queen and decided to give it away for free. If you haven’t subscribed to her new-ish newsletter yet, run don’t walk.

• Sunset Junction’s long-awaited Hotel Lucile will have to be...awaited for a while longer. As I wrote in February, the 25-room hotel in Sunset Junction’s former Pilgrim Church, originally built in 1931 and revived over the past few years by the team at Electric Bowery, was originally scheduled to open in April. That ship has sailed, obviously, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the hotel’s new projected opening in August is alsowishful thinking. There doesn’t seem to be much work happening at the building these days — and photos of completed spaces have been published — so I’m guessing the delays at this point are mostly due to permits, licenses, and municipal red tape. That kind of thing can drag on forever. Relatedly, I have to imagine the Silver Lake Pool & Inn is enjoying milking its status as Silver Lake’s only boutique hotel for as long as humanly possible.

• LA’s booming microdrama industry has been a boon for actors and DPs, but it’s not going so well for writers. Top microdrama actors are reportedly making upwards of $40k a month, and a cinematographer I know is so frequently booked on microdrama projects that it’s become a running joke. But writers are being offered rates so far below their usual quotes that it’s often not worth taking the job. A writer with experience in several traditional TV rooms told me a recent offer they received from a reputable microdrama studio was “so insulting I was actually shocked,” adding that they were given no room to negotiate. “These are people with money,” this writer lamented. “How can you justify sitting in your multi-million-dollar house and offering me peanuts for my work?”

• Vanessa Anderson, aka Grocery Goblin, investigated the curious scarcity of fair trade bananas in LA for LA Material. The video companion to the article was filmed at everyone’s favorite LA Grocery & Café (which became the impetus for Vanessa’s article after owner Caitlin Sullivan told Vanessa she couldn’t find fair trade bananas anywhere). This is the kind of boots-on-the-ground local journalism I love, and I’m so glad there are independent operators in LA who are making it a priority.

• Puck founder Jon Kelly is a brilliant How Long Gone guest. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about how the sausage is made at the darling of the media industry, now you can.

• I’ve discussed multi-brand retail ad nauseam, but here’s an interesting example of multiple brands (themselves) partnering on retail. Highland Park’s newest clothing store is a partnership between Ty McBride’s footwear label Intentionally Blank and Andie Casette’s clothing brand RIRIKU. If traditional multi-brand retailers aren’t able to make the numbers work, maybe retail owned and operated by multiple brands…will? I’ll be watching to see how this one plays out. (And credit to and for finding this one first).

• Here’s an interesting tidbit from one of Louis Cheslaw’s (unmissable) recent updates: Mohawk General’s house line, Smock, has become the store’s top-selling brand. This makes sense because the line is generally more reasonably priced than many of Mohawk’s other offerings, but also because the stuff is good. I’m wearing an overshirt from the brand as I write this. Smock still feels slightly under the radar in terms of the broader menswear conversation, but it has the potential to be a much bigger player. At this point, it probably just depends on what Kevin Carney wants.

  • Speaking of Louis — I paid for his newsletter (as everyone should) and have a few free trials to give away. Respond to this email if you want one. First come, first served.

• Los Feliz-based musician and designer Will Canning wanted a more personal creative outlet, so he made a photo book. The initial drop includes only 50 copies, so act fast if you want one. Book aside, Will takes on select commissions (recent work includes Tame Impala’s tour merch) and has great taste; you should hire him if you need design work.

• Quentin Tarantino is extending the hours of his coffee shop within the Vista Theater. Pam’s Coffy will now be open every day of the week from 6:30am to 7:30pm, which puts it among the earliest opens and the latest closes of all the independent coffee shops in town.

• A massive $2bn development project just got approved for downtown LA. The mammoth project will rise on a 7.6-acre plot of (trigger warning) cold storage facilities at the intersection of Fourth Street and Central Avenue in Skid Row. Spread across ten separate buildings, the complex will include 572 condos and 949 apartments, a retail destination, and public plazas. Around 260 of the 1,521 total residential units will be reserved for low-income tenants, and everything is being designed by the architecture firm of Studio One Eleven in partnership with David Adjaye (best known for his legacy-making work on the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, DC).

• Glendale’s extremely talented — the writer of Counteroffer, among others — will be premiering her short film, Choke the Anchovy, at LA Shorts Fest. Marie wrote and directed the film, which stars Ella Balinska and Daniel Olson. I’m inspired by both the volume and the quality level at which Marie creates — she’s always working on something, and that something is always good. She reminds me that we should all be taking more risks, making the things we want to make, and cultivating a sense of variety in our creative lives.

• This Saturday, 7/4, Seedy is partnering with Senses Coffee Project for a day of espresso, Thai and Mexican specials, and tamarind BBQ burgers in Lincoln Heights. Per the team, “we don’t have an espresso machine so this is a very special day.” Seedy is one of the most interesting and original eateries to open in LA over the past year — and also, for what it’s worth, one of the best — so you should stop by if you’re in town over the holiday. It’s all happening from 10am-4pm at 3406 N. Broadway.

• This 1912 cabin in Elysian Heights could be a perfect house. It has all the right bones and then some, it hasn’t been ruined by a developer, and the light and built-ins are amazing. It’s at the end of a cul-de-sac, so you will literally never have to contend with traffic or noise. That said, it needs a little work to make it comfortable. If you buy this place, I want to see the before-and-afters.

• And per the tip line, this place in Silver Lake belongs to handbag designer Clare V. It’s back on the market after first listing in March, going into contract, and apparently falling out of escrow. It’s extremely charming, the living room and backyard are huge, and the original details have largely been preserved. The (presumably very expensive) outdoor cat habitat freaks me out a little bit.

In today’s issue: Garret Gooch and Maria Galindo chat about York Manor Market, a $31mm “garden bridge” gets approved over the LA River, the Loreto team opens a sister restaurant in the Arts District, LA’s streetlight issue continues, Breakfast by Salt’s Cure moves to Silver Lake, the LAX people mover still isn’t open, a pop-up at Stir Crazy, a $32mm house in Pasadena, and a $799k cottage in Silver Lake.

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It seems like everyone on the east side has some kind of side hustle — I know people who write in their spare time, pick up photography gigs on the weekends, and moonlight as illustrators. Others run ticketed parties, produce one-act plays, and design t-shirts. But how many people do you know who stage an….entire market multiple times a month? Garret Gooch and Maria Galindo do just that.

The Highland Park-based couple are the organizers of the increasingly popular York Manor Market, which brings a lineup of 45-odd vendors to York Boulevard on a bi-weekly(ish) basis. The indoor market has become a valuable incubator for local creative businesses and features clothing, art, ceramics, housewares, jewelry, and food, with vendors rotating in and out to keep each edition’s lineup unique.

Both Garret and Maria balance their duties at the market with day jobs — Garret’s a creative producer at Nike, and Maria’s an independent brand and design strategist — which seems…crazy. I caught them for a drink earlier this week to hear more about the market’s inception, evaluating vendor applications, and handling the Herculean task of setting up, managing, and tearing down a 45-stall market in Highland Park.

Here’s our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and conciseness:

You’re both extremely busy people — what made you decide to open a market in your spare time?

GARRET: It started because somebody I knew had a lease on a building in Highland Park and mentioned there was availability if I was interested in doing anything. And I decided I really wanted to do a market. I would go and do footwear sample sales at some of the markets [around town] when I first moved here, eleven years ago now, and the experience was rarely great — it was never vendor-first. So the idea of doing the market was about maybe changing the experience. I came home and told Maria we might have this space, and she was like, If you’re going to do anything, it must look good.

Maria and I have opposite backgrounds, but there’s the right amount of overlap in the Venn diagram. I produce and direct commercials and experiential events, and Maria’s a brand strategist, researcher, and writer. Maria had put herself through design school and she had this talent that she’d never been able to apply to something that was hers. So that week we went to a coffee shop and did the branding exercise she does when she rebrands companies. And we generated the whole concept there. We had our first market five weeks later and had more than thirty vendors, which was insane. My brother put together a little band, they improvised on stage, and more than a thousand people came. Right then and there I was like, Whoa, I think this is gonna work. We should invest more time in this.

MARIA: It was sort of this weird cosmic thing where it required what Garret does for a living, putting on events — which he also just loves — and also what I do for a living and love. I don’t even think we realized this at first, but we ultimately didn’t need to hire anybody to put it on. I can take point on all the external comms and branding, he can do all the logistical madness, and then we collaborate on everything to a certain extent.

GARRET: We found a way to do it together but separately, and also learn from each other. Maria, in some sense, is an experienced producer now, even if she won’t take credit. And I feel like I have such a better eye for design from being by her side on those projects.

MARIA: I don’t even know how many markets we’ve hosted at this point, probably 30 or so. But we’ve hosted more than 500 different brands, and it’s so exciting to see those brands want to do our market again and again. At the beginning, I was shocked when Garret was like, So [the vendors will] start to load in around 6:30 in the morning, and then we’ll start to pack up by 4:15. I was like, That’s a very long day, people are gonna die. People can’t die on my watch. So I decided to make everyone a little goodie bag. I put in a banana and a granola bar, little things to keep everyone fed and hydrated, and to this day we hand them out. It’s kind of the bare minimum, but it’s so touching to people. They’re like, Nobody talks to us at the other markets. We’ve built something where we care about the vendors as people.

How did you go about identifying vendors at the beginning, and how has that changed as the market has become more established?

GARRET: For the first one we made a lot of phone calls and sent a lot of text messages. We made a little flyer and asked friends to bet on us, we posted a lot on our personal channels. That was one of my prouder moments, when those [first brands] signed on. We had literally nothing [to go off of] — we didn’t even have many photos of the space. And then we had a huge turnout and had an absolute blast, and now we don’t really have to go out and search. We’re getting around 100 applications per market, and we only have 45 spaces at full capacity. I wish we could accept everybody, but we also hardcore curate it to make the market as good as it can be.

MARIA: It’s all fun, and it’s all stuff that’s worth buying. I hate online shopping, and this has given me a closet I’m happy with. Some of the vendors will be like, You have a shopping problem. But I’m here to support my vendors! And it’s all made here — we like to support domestic manufacturing, and vintage vendors who are repurposing stuff that’s probably landfill-bound. Some of the best feedback we get is that people actually buy at our market, which isn’t the case everywhere. We want our vendors to sell, and it feels so good to see them grow as businesses.

What have you learned over the course of thirty markets?

MARIA: What I’ve learned is so personal — it’s completely shaped my relationship to LA. I’m an East Coaster, and I came from seven years in New York. You get here, and you don’t really know who to relate to. The market has taught me to value LA for the people, and for all the talent and drive they have to do whatever it is they do. My friend Eva makes handmade French-inspired clothing, and my friend Anna makes jewelry. We’ll go get drinks and sometimes they’re like, This shit is so hard, I think I need a job. And then at the end of the day, they’re like, I don’t want a job, I want to spend my day in downtown LA making jewelry, and they figure out a way to make it work. It’d be much easier to have a full-time job, but I’ve learned from them that it’s okay to be uncertain, and you can’t give up.

And also…how do you balance all of this with your day jobs?

GARRET: For the last two-and-a-half years, I generally wake up around 5am and commute to wherever I’m working — either the office or wherever my shoot is — and then I go to a coffee shop and spend two to three hours working on the market. It’ll be three hours of going through all the applications, vendor layouts, communications, and assets. It’s still really hard, but it’s gotten easier, and it feels normal now.

MARIA: There have definitely been times where we’ve been like, Okay, we’re burned out. Last year, I personally took on too much. I had a full-time job, we had the market, and I was planning a wedding. So we had to learn how much is too much. But it also feels embedded in our lives now. I’ll be watching TV and writing vendor highlights. Or we’ll go get coffee and we’ll be like, Okay, lets work for an hour and then close our laptops. It takes up a lot of our weekends, but it’s also really fun and we’re able to be together.

How do you see the market evolving moving forward?

GARRET: I kind of subscribe to the theory of like, don’t fix it if it isn’t broken. Other than adding more fun experiences, some more live music, a chain stitcher…we’re not altering the overall direction. We have a ton of people who rely on our market to pay their rent, and we provide a kick ass time. We can add on a few fun experiences and build out the digital world of the market, but otherwise we’ll just keep doing it.

And finally, your top three spots on the east side are…

GARRET: I think Checker Hall has the best steak frites in LA, and the hot honey schnitzel there rocks my world. I think Modu is one of the most wonderful and calm places in the neighborhood. Jiyoon and Yoonji are the owners, they’re sisters. God, that place is incredible. And How’s it Going to End? in Montrose. It used to be a dry cleaner that was there for decades, and it’s been rebuilt as this gorgeous coffee spot that also hosts Neapolitan pizza and bagel vendors on Sundays.

MARIA: Number one is the same, Modu. You’ve got to get to know the sisters. Number two is Sam’s Place. You have to really fight for a table, but I’m from New York and I can do that. We’ve had a lot of great dinners there together. And then Two Kids — we’re big coffee shop people. Ryan and his wife own this beautiful, funky little coffee shop on Mission in South Pasadena. They play sick late ‘90s and early 2000s hip-hop, and every person taking your order takes so much time to look you in the eye and be like, How are you doing this morning? The owners are architects, so the space is great, and it’s very South Pas — all the parents are dressed to a T and their kids are so cute. It’s the best.

The next edition of York Manor Market is this Sunday, 6/28 from 10am-4pm at 4908 York Boulevard.

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• A $31mm “garden bridge” will be constructed across the LA River between Glendale and Griffith Park. The sculptural pedestrian expanse includes landscaped gardens, seating areas, and viewpoints, and will connect the intersection of Fairmont Avenue and Flower Street in Glendale to the northeast corner of Los Angeles’s largest public park. Several early approvals have been granted, and $18.75mm of the construction cost will be covered by the state’s Prop 68 parks bond. The bridge is projected to open to the public in 2030, though if other LA infrastructure projects are any indication….it might take a bit longer.

• Speaking of delayed infrastructure projects, LAX’s long-overdue people mover still isn’t transporting passengers. It was initially set to open in 2023, and officials promised it’d be operational in time to transport the thousands of soccer fans in LA for the World Cup. Alas, not a single civilian has ridden it (despite the fact that it’s by all accounts complete and has been in testing for months).

• The Loreto team is opening a new restaurant in the former Chá Chá Chá space in the Arts District. I’m always amazed by how under-the-radar Loreto has remained given how good it is, and I’m all in on an expansion. The new place, the result of that low-key fundraising campaign I wrote about earlier this year, is an Italian-leaning alfresco spot called CineOpera, and it features big outdoor screens intended for showing movies and sports games. The restaurant is currently in preview phase ahead of a July grand opening, but you can stop by to meet Mexican soccer legend Oribe Peralta and watch the Colombia vs. Portugal game tomorrow if that’s your thing. The meet-and-greet is from 4:30-5:30pm, with the watch party to follow.

  • From the tip line — there was a celebrity wedding at Loreto this weekend. I’m not blowing up anyone’s spot, but it happened.

• Los Feliz-based writer Madison Huizinga is hosting a free newsletter writing workshop at Café Nido on Tuesday, 6/30. Madison, the very talented writer of , will teach everyone who signs up the tips and tricks of the trade (though, at the end of the day, the secret is just…write about something you’re interested in). The event is sponsored by Microsoft, which only reiterates the fact that newsletters are where the money is these days. I’m reliably told there will be free merch. If you’ve always dreamed of Substack glory, this could be a great way to get started. RSVP here.

• Breakfast by Salt’s Cure relocated from West Hollywood to Silver Lake. The idea of a successful West Hollywood-based eatery expanding to Silver Lake isn’t new — it feels like everyone’s doing it recently (to decidedly mixed results). But closing your West Hollywood location to move to Silver Lake is more interesting. Instead of doubling down on West Hollywood after losing their location of 16 years, Breakfast by Salt’s Cure owners Lula and Chris Phelps decided to head east, landing a spot at 4348 Fountain Avenue. I’m always a little skeptical about an incoming chain’s ability to compete with the local stalwarts — it’s tough to compete with an institution like Millie’s or exciting new originals like Wilde’s and Chainsaw. If you happen to pass the new Salt’s Cure, let me know what the crowds look like.

• LA homeowners overwhelmingly rejected a proposed $80mm increase in funding for streetlight maintenance. I’ve gotten used to the darkness, for better or for worse, but friends who visited last month couldn’t stop talking about how dark the streets are at night. LA, like all cities, has many issues, but keeping the lights on feels like the bare minimum. And I guess it won’t be changing….

• The (almost) century-old Sparkletts plant in Highland Park has been named a city historic monument. The Moorish Revival structure, built in 1929, served as an active bottling plant until last year and is currently vacant. Kristen Stewart bought the Highland Theater earlier this year with plans to restore and reopen it as a fully-programmed cultural center — here’s hoping something interesting happens at the Sparkletts building too.

• Everything at Danny D’s Mud Shop is 15% off through Monday (6/26-6/29). If you’ve been to the mud shop, you’ve probably met Danny’s dog, Kaiya. She had a tumor removed this week, and the shop is now aiming to recoup a portion of her hefty vet bill. To me, this is a great example of the power of local enterprise — Danny opened a small business that serves the neighborhood (and frequently hosts all manner of community events), and now that community has a chance to both shop for goods and support a neighbor. No better time to buy some ceramics…

• Cult-favorite winemaker Jude Zasadzki’s Dream Farm Wines is popping up at Stir Crazy. This obviously isn’t on the east side, but I love Stir Crazy and east siders love Jude, so I’m including it. This Tuesday, 6/30 there’ll be a ham tasting, pours of Jude’s current release, and an “experimental champagne method bottling of a hybrid grape.” The wine labels will be made from Stir Crazy’s recycled menu paper, which is…awesome. You can make a reservation here, and they’ll be saving space for walk-ins, too.

• I have no interest in Cannes Lions, but the Thistles dinner in Paris this week looked fun. The eyewear brand that Thistle Brown, Paul Lachman, and team are building has a razor-sharp vision, genuinely great frames, and Lauren Sherman is obsessed with it. I think it’s only a matter of time until we see Thistles sunglasses everywhere on this side of town. If you’re feeling acquisitive, I really like these.

• Another house in Pasadena listed for north of $30mm. Just days after Anthony Russo’s legendary estate hit the market for a record-busting $45mm, this Tudor Revival mansion landed with a $32mm thud. The 18,665-square-foot house was built in 1928 by the firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements and includes seven bedrooms, eleven bathrooms, and some of the most insane original woodwork I’ve ever seen. The five-acre grounds include walled gardens, multiple patios, and a grotto-style pool I’m actually extremely into. The house last sold eleven months ago for $20.5mm and a nearly $12mm jump in less than a year seems slightly crazy, but…stranger things have happened.

• And this $799k hilltop cottage in Silver Lake is slightly impractical yet kind of perfect. Up a lot of stairs from the street, the one-bedroom house measures only 549 square feet but has phenomenal views and light and a studio space accessible from the outside. It’s perfect for a single artist with some cash who wants a daily glute workout, and I hope that’s who buys it.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I’ll see you next week <3

In today’s letter: your chance to weigh in on the Elysian Park revamp, the high-end perfumer debuting in Silver Lake, a VHS store expands in Echo Park, Jamie Haller is hiring designers in DTLA, the Dodgers (finally) make a $1mm donation, the national brands highlighting neighborhood businesses, Alex Edelman’s hometown show, a multi-brand eyewear emporium in Silver Lake, and the very best place $499k can buy.

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Here’s your chance to contribute ideas for a revamped Elysian Park.

The Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, in partnership with the Department of Water and Power, is planning to invest about $12.5mm in improvements to Elysian Park over the next few years. Together, the city groups are conducting research, gathering community input, and analyzing potential opportunities as they work to create a formal master plan for Elysian.

The plan is being led by the heavyweight team at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, famous for their design of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Harvard University, and, most recently, the Obama Presidential Center. Something tells me whatever this team conceives will ultimately require much more than $12.5mm to execute, but their involvement nonetheless feels like an undeniable opportunity for LA.

The plan alone will take about two years to create — which seems crazy to me — but it will also allow anyone who cares about public spaces in LA to offer suggestions for improvements to the park. You want a playground? You want a new hiking trail? You’re rich, live north of Los Feliz Boulevard, and want to underwrite a new band shell? Take the community listening survey now or forever hold your peace.

In an attempt to encourage community involvement in this process, I asked a few neighbors what they’d like to see improved at the park. Here’s what they had to say:

The corporatization of Sunset Junction continues (or does it?) with a high end perfumer.

For months now, I’ve wondered what might become of the easternmost retail space in the Sunset Junction assemblage anchored by Café Stella (the big, red complex that’s also home to Intelligentsia, and until recently, La Pharmacie du Vin). The space has phenomenal floor-to-ceiling casement windows, a supremely visible location in the heart of Sunset Junction, and, somewhat improbably, has been wildly underutilized as boarded-up overflow storage for Café Stella over the past several years.

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In today’s issue: a conversation with the Good Boy team, Boyle Heights shelters in place, Kumquat revamps its original café, Charles Melton snags the role of the year, Taix is officially being demolished, Democrats are opposing the billionaire’s tax, a can’t-miss show in Beachwood Canyon, an open mic at the farmer’s market, and a truly wild triplex in the Silver Lake hills.

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Building a wine brand on the east side.

Over the past few years, I’ve started to see Good Boy Wine everywhere on the east side. It’s on the menu at restaurants, it’s in coolers at the meadow, and, inevitably, someone brings a bottle to every dinner I host. If a creative (or creative company) hosts a party, Good Boy’s usually behind the bar. Last summer, I was blown away by the size of the crowd at the label’s Good Boy & Friends event in the Arts District. Good Boy, it turns out, isn’t just the side hustle of a few east side creatives. It’s also a legitimate east side business.

Ahead of this year’s fifth edition of the blowout tasting party — returning to DTLA on 6/27 — I connected with founders Eric Bach, Dave Bourke, and Katie Workinger to discuss building a wine brand in LA, getting in with the creative crowd, and their favorite east side spots.

Tell me a bit about Good Boy’s history. How did it all start?

Good Boy started in a basement, which feels spiritually correct for us. We kicked it off with the goal of making the kind of wine we actually wanted to drink — beautiful California fruit, low-intervention winemaking, not too much preciousness, and a brand world that felt more like LA than Napa cosplay.

The original space had this old wine production permit from the ’50s, back when an Italian family had used the same basement to make wine. So it had a little ghost-of-wine-past energy. Since then, we’ve grown up a bit, moved production to Santa Ynez, and expanded into restaurants, shops, and cities beyond LA. But the core idea is still the same: serious wine, unserious attitude.

What’s it like building a wine brand in Los Angeles?

LA is the best possible place to build a wine brand if you’re not interested in doing things the normal way. Wine here doesn’t have to live only in tasting rooms or white-tablecloth restaurants. It can live at a gallery opening, in someone’s backyard, at a pool party, on a dance floor, or at a picnic table next to a very opinionated dog.

The wine matters, obviously. But wine is also a vehicle for everything else: food, music, art, design, community, whatever happens after the second bottle … LA gives you permission to build a whole world around it, which is basically what we’re trying to do.

I see your wine all over the east side and I feel like I have a pretty good guess here, but who’s your target demographic?

You’re probably guessing correctly. The east side has been a natural home for us because it has that perfect overlap of restaurants, natural wine, artists, designers, music people, dog people, and people who care about taste but don’t want to be lectured by a guy in a vest. But we think about it less as a demographic and more as a frequency. It’s wine for sophisticated palates, but not for people who need wine to act sophisticated.

How did Good Boy & Friends come about?

It came from the same place as the wine itself — we make the wine we want to drink, and we throw the parties we want to be at. It’s simple, and maybe a little self-serving, but honestly, that’s usually the best filter. If we wouldn’t want to go, why would anyone else?

A lot of wine festivals are pretty straightforward: walk up, get a pour, hear about soil, nod politely, repeat. We wanted something with more oxygen in it. So Good Boy & Friends became a wine event that feels more like an LA daydream — winemakers, chefs, artists, DJs, dogs, friends, food, galleries, and a dance floor all orbiting around wine.

How do you select the winemakers and local vendors who participate?

Taste comes first. The wine has to be good, the food has to hit, and the products have to make sense. But after that, it’s really about the point of view. We’re looking for people who add to the world, not just people who can fill a table. Some participants are established, some are emerging … we like it when the mix feels a little unexpected but still totally natural, which is basically the whole Good Boy operating system.

Is there a target number of attendees you’re aiming for this year?

We’re aiming for around 2,500 people this year. Last year showed us there’s real demand for this kind of wine event, so we’re growing it, but carefully. Bigger only works if the vibe survives.

And finally, the Good Boy team’s top three spots on the east side are…

This is rude because the east side is stacked, and we’re going to offend at least eight friends. But if we have to pick three: Dunsmoor, because it’s just so fucking good; Quarter Sheets for our favorite pie and decadent dessert combo; and of course, Seco, our favorite local bar. Honorable mentions because we’re not monsters: Bar Di Bello, Vandell, All Time, and Betsy’s (even though it may not be politically correct to put them in the same list as All Time).

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🍽️ And now for some table scraps…

• The original Kumquat location in Highland Park is getting a renovation. Since opening their first shop in 2018, AJ Kim and Scott Sohn have expanded to a second Kumquat location in downtown LA, Loquat storefronts in Cypress Park and Silver Lake, the always-packed Fondry in Highland Park, and the objectively impressive QUAT campus (with a café, roastery, retail, and omakase) in Glassell Park. Now, they’ll be taking some time to reimagine the original café, reintroduce indoor seating, and offer whatever “a greater depth of service” means. It’s worth noting that AJ and Scott have opened at least one new store every year since 2022 — they’re clearly very well-capitalized and they’ve virtually conquered the east side, so the big question is…when are they going to expand west?

• Boyle Heights was under a shelter-in-place order. Following a catastrophic fire at a cold storage facility on Wednesday afternoon, the LAFD has asked neighborhood residents to remain indoors while they work to ventilate the affected structures. A special Particle Pollution Advisory was in effect until 12:30pm today. Officers are still fighting flare-ups at the 500,000-square-foot warehouse, though an ammonia line that was leaking at the site has (thankfully) been contained.

• From the tip line — Charli XCX bought out Max & Helen’s last night to celebrate the release of her Rolling Stone cover. Most of the usual suspects were in attendance. Allegedly, the Rolling Stone piece will be the last long-form interview she participates in for a while.

• The first-ever open mic at the Echo Park Farmer’s Market is happening tonight. This is a fun idea, and it’d be cool if something like this actually became a discovery source for up-and-coming talent. It feels like, with time, it could. For now, artists should sign up in-person starting at 4:30pm. Each act gets five minutes (inclusive of setup and teardown), and everyone should bring their own instruments, though two mics and an electric keyboard will be provided. The actual open mic is from 5-7pm at 1146 Logan Street for those just looking to attend.

• Friend of the Rag and indefatigable Silver Lake evangelist Charles Melton will be starring alongside Matt Damon in the Daniels’ long-awaited follow-up to Everything Everywhere All at Once. The plot is entirely under wraps, as are most things about the Universal-backed project, yet it might be the most hotly anticipated movie of the next year or so. It’ll be shooting in LA this summer, which makes me even more excited. If you see Charles at Millie’s, say congrats. And if you missed my conversation with him, you can check it out here.

• From the tip line — demolition is officially underway at the late, great, and (yes, sorry) over-eulogized Taix building. We loved Taix, and we’re sad to see it go. It was the kind of offbeat, no rules, so-old-it’s-incredible spot you just can’t build these days. But — and I’m including my own writing in this — did we really need 100+ articles about its closure? Probably not. If the owners are to be believed, it’ll be back (in a very different form) in 2029.

• Gift of Garb will be back at the Silverlake Flea tomorrow with tons of vintage designer goods. Everything from Isabel Marant to Celine to Chloé to Acne to Alaïa and everything in between. It’s all happening tomorrow, 6/20 from 9am-4pm at the Flea’s new location in Atwater Village (4561 W. Colorado Boulevard).

• Breaker identified the journalist Maggie Rogers made out with in a New York Times conference room.

• Left-leaning healthcare organizations and education groups have come out in opposition to California’s proposed “billionaire’s tax.” It’s a surprising about-face for organizations that have historically been extremely pro-tax. Governor Gavin Newsom (along with most of the Democrats running to replace him this year) also opposes the tax, which proposes imposing a one-time 5% tax on the assets of ultra-high net worth individuals in California.

• I don’t have a lot of faith in Jay Penske’s ability to revive Eater’s magic. The guy who owns Variety, Deadline, the Hollywood Reporter, and almost every other Hollywood trade just bought Eater, along with the other Vox Media sites left behind following James Murdoch’s acquisition of New York Magazine and the Vox podcast network. Ten years ago, Eater and Curbed were scoopy, opinionated, and fun. They were two of my favorite sites on the internet. But the intervening years have not been kind to either — Curbed became a vertical of New York, and Eater, while still a standalone product, has existed as a shell of its former self. These days, individual writers (like…the Rag) can move more quickly, get to the punch first, and include actual opinions in their stories. Why would someone go to Eater for a watered-down version of a story days after it runs in a newsletter? I hope I’m wrong here, we’ll see how it goes.

• The New Theater Hollywood and Mariposa are partnering on a show in Beachwood Canyon. “Self Tape for Soap Opera” features original videos by Asher Hartman, Karl Holmqvist, Amalia Ulman, Jasmine Johnson, Klein, Ken Okiishi, and Colin Self. All are artists who’ve staged (or are planning to stage) plays at the New Theater Hollywood. Both Mariposa and the New Theater are becoming cornerstones of a new, uniquely LA wave of art world players — their work is deeply rooted in LA yet travels much further. Don’t miss this one — there’s an opening reception this Sunday, 6/21 from 6-9pm at Mariposa (2700 N. Beachwood Drive) and the show itself runs through 8/15.

• Chance the Rapper loves LA now. He didn’t originally, but — like most people who give it a little time — he came around.

• Netflix is officially under contract on the historic Radford studio lot in Studio City for $400mm. Unlike many industry onlookers right now, I’m bullish on the return of LA production — and this is a great step in the right direction. Is it insane that Netflix is paying $400mm when the property last sold for $1.85bn in 2021? Yes, of course. But just like the companies using the down market as an opportunity to snap up DTLA real estate, this is ultimately a major vote of confidence in the future of industry in LA. I’m curious to see if any employees currently based in rented Hollywood space will get shifted to the valley. If you’re reading this and your commute is about to get longer, my condolences.

• Substack whisperer Max Stein was named to The Ankler’s list of power brokers going to Cannes Lions. He probably doesn’t have time on his calendar, but if you’re in Cannes this year and you don’t meet with Max…you’re doing something wrong.

• I got a lot of questions about the shoes I was wearing in Wednesday’s letter. And honestly…they’re the best. They’re unbelievably comfortable and they look good with anything. I thought about gatekeeping them, but everyone should experience joy in their lives.

• This is — bar none — the craziest investment property I’ve ever seen on the east side. This place feels like it could be on a hillside overlooking Lake Como, no? There are three units, including a top-floor owner’s unit with three bedrooms and two bathrooms; a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit on the second floor; and a ground-floor one-bedroom apartment. The owner’s unit has sweeping views of the reservoir and the Silver Lake hills, and the whole thing is walkable to Lamill, L&E, and all the good spots on Silver Lake Boulevard. Are the kitchens a little too trendy? Sure. But someone with some extra cash should buy this immediately.

• And for just over $1mm, this house in Mount Washington has three bedrooms and an unmissable deck. The house is extremely charming, but it’s the outdoor spaces — the deck has a shade structure and sweeping hillside views, the walled front garden, and the landscaped backyard — that sell this place for me. This is a great buy (and I’m betting it won’t last very long, so act fast if you want it).

Have a great weekend, everyone. See you next week <3

We need a next-gen Jeff Klein-type to open an actually-interesting workspace/club/watering hole on the east side. I’d join in a heartbeat. If anyone’s working on something along those lines, let’s talk.

In today’s issue: how Angelenos are thinking about (and spending money on) their cars, Eckhaus Latta’s Chinatown block party, the beer mile around the corner, a saké bar soft launches in Echo Park, everyone’s buying DTLA real estate, a new late-night sandwich shop, things are getting chaotic at the LA Zoo, Kate Berlant’s favorite east side restaurants, Café Stella’s new dress code, and a killer one-bedroom rental.

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Here’s what your neighbors are driving.

I’m always curious about car culture in LA, and also about what a car says (or doesn’t say) about its owner. An Angeleno’s car is second only to their bed on the list of places they reliably spend time, and as such, everyone has an opinion about their vehicle.

But just as some Angelenos’ cars align almost too predictably with their personalities (“Of course he drives a G-Wagen”), others are….more unexpected. I know people who make less than minimum wage yet somehow drive luxury SUVs (“It’s a lease!”), and I also know people who make more on a monthly basis than I do in a year whose cars look one pothole away from total collapse.

In an effort to understand LA’s car culture better, I asked Rag readers what kind of car they drive and why — and also whether they believe a car is something worth (over)spending on.

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