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Tag: Cole’s

  • Saugus Café to Reopen Under New Owners After 140-Year Run

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    The oldest restaurant in Los Angeles County closed on Sunday but is coming back with new owners

    Los Angeles County’s oldest restaurant, the Saugus Café in Santa Clarita, closed on Sunday after nearly 140 years. Today it was announced by KHTS Radio that the venerable dining spot would reopen soon under new ownership. “The incoming managing owners of the Saugus Cafe, speaking with KHTS on the condition of anonymity until the ownership transition is finalized,” the station posted on Instagram. “Said they are eager to carry on the legacy.” The station noted that renovations would include “updating” the kitchen, dining area and adjacent bar.

    Like the The Ship of Theseus, the Saugus Café has been rebuilt many times. The business began as the Saugus Eating House inside the new Southern Pacific Railroad station when it opened in 1888. Eleven years later, it was sold to new owners and renamed Saugus Café. There are stories of characters like President Theodore Roosevelt and Los Angeles water czar William Mulholland enjoying the restaurant around the turn of the century.

    The Saugus Cafe in 1929
    Credit: Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

    In 1916, the business moved across the tracks to a new building close to its current location. Silent film stars like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford are said to have enjoyed a meal here when filming nearby. The café was rebuilt in 1941 after a truck ran into the building and that version was demolished in 1952.

    Today, the core interior elements, like the counter stools, pie cases and booth configuration, appear to date from the 1950s version, while most of the historic fabric inside has been swapped out by a parade of operators over the last 75 years.  The closure leaves Cole’s French Dip (which itself is on the verge of closure) as L.A.’s oldest restaurant. Downtown legend Philippe The Original rounds out the pack. Still going strong with 118 years under its belt.

    Saugus Cafe in 2013
    Credit: Photo by mr. rollers

    The new owners of the Saugus Cafe tell KHTS that their new chef has been following around the old one to ensure consistency and that they have plans to trim the menu, lower prices, and expand hours. The restaurant was once known for being open around the clock.  The new owners plan to reopen in a few weeks and perhaps they will again draw the massive crowds that flocked to the legendary café in the weeks leading to its closure.

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    Chris Nichols

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  • Downtown Decay Threatens L.A.’s Legacy Sandwich Shops

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    The smell hits before the lights come on.

    At Cole’s French Dip, a 117-year-old landmark on Sixth Street, employees start each morning not by slicing roast beef but by scrubbing the sidewalk. Shoveling debris. Power washing waste they pray isn’t human steps away from the doorway. Checking the stoop for needles before unlocking the door. Downtown L.A.’s oldest restaurant has survived Prohibition, recessions, and a pandemic—but it can’t survive this. The owner said it plainly: the neighborhood died around us.

    A few miles west, at Langer’s Deli near MacArthur Park, the famous No. 19 pastrami sandwich still draws lunchtime pilgrims. But the owner, Norm Langer, admits he’s no longer sure how long he can keep going. “We’re doing what the city should be doing,” he told reporters earlier this year, describing the daily ritual of cleaning drug paraphernalia from the curb before customers arrive. “You just hope nobody gets hurt.”

    These aren’t newcomers complaining about downtown grit; they’re institutions that fed this city for generations. Their exits and doubts aren’t about fickle customers, they’re about survival in a civic environment that’s turned toxic.

    According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, homelessness within the city rose about 10 percent in 2023, reaching roughly 46,000 people. In the downtown core, encampments grew another 15 percent in the same period, overwhelming sanitation and safety resources. Illegal-dumping complaints citywide rose 5 percent in 2024. Street sweeping that once happened weekly now occurs every other week, and to business owners, that’s an eternity.

    The city insists it’s responding. Mayor Karen Bass’s Inside Safe program has moved thousands from encampments into temporary housing, while the Bureau of Street Services and L.A. Sanitation tout expanded cleanup teams and 311 pickup requests. Yet downtown still depends heavily on its Business Improvement Districts, which now spend more than $20 million a year on private cleanup and security. The message to small businesses is clear: survival is a DIY project.

    Downtown’s legacy restaurants were never hardened gems; they’ve always been more like the delicate loaves of sourdough every Instagrammer embraced during lockdown, delicious acts of labor that need warmth, timing, and care. They’ve fed office workers and night-shift cops, tourists and tenants.. But bread goes stale and molds when left out too long, and downtown has been left out for too many years.

    Since 2023, at least five downtown mainstays, Cole’s French Dip, Nickel Diner, Yxta Cocina Mexicana, Guerrilla Tacos, and the Original Pantry Café, have shuttered or announced closures, citing crime, encampments, and relentless upkeep costs. The survivors are exhausted, fighting to keep their doors open in a city that’s given up on keeping its sidewalks clean.

    At closing time, when the last of the staff leaves Cole’s, the lights go out, and the smell of roasted beef disappears from Sixth Street. What lingers is the bleach, the dust, and the question hanging over every block of downtown Los Angeles:

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    How do you bake anything fresh in a city so rotten?

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    Alexandra Kazarian

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