Making the decision to quit a restaurant that one has poured passion, sweat and money into can be daunting. But the tumult in the restaurant industry and its fragile recovery have forced many restaurant owners and chefs to do just that. In this article we talk about Why These Five Former LA Restaurant Owners Left the Industry.
After years of pushing to keep their kitchens afloat through the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic and navigating the changes brought on by legislation, social movements and inflation, a growing number of restaurant owners and chefs are reimagining their lives.
Many closed up shop simply because their restaurants were no longer financially viable. Others burned out and yearned for some kind of work-life balance that is nearly impossible to achieve running your own restaurant. Some were done sacrificing family time and wanted to spend more time with their young children.
But no matter their reasons for leaving their businesses, one common denominator stood out among most of the chefs and restaurateurs we talked with: They say they’re much happier now.
Andrea Borgen Abdallah, Former Owner of Barcito in Downtown LA
In spring 2021, after months struggling to keep her Argentine-inspired restaurant Barcito open during the COVID-19 pandemic, Andrea Borgen Abdallah finally felt able to reopen for indoor dining. But she wasn’t excited about it. After years of running on adrenaline, she was running out of energy.
“I don’t love this restaurant anymore,” she thought to herself. After a nearly six-year run, Abdallah closed Barcito in June 2021.
She was feeling burned out even before the pandemic, which forced her to reevaluate her life. “I knew I didn’t want to go back to how things were before,” says Abdallah, 35, who until the restaurant shutdowns of 2020 didn’t have time to have dinner with her husband on a regular basis.
She’s now the director of community engagement for the Independent Restaurant Coalition, where she’s focused on ensuring that the group’s federal policy agenda reflects restaurant owners’ needs. “I want work-life balance to be achievable,” she says. “I want a career in restaurants to feel sustainable for everyone.”
For that to happen, she feels that the restaurant industry itself must change. “I realized I couldn’t fix [the industry] from the inside,” she says. “So now I’m focusing on the systemic issues that get in the way of that future.”
Spencer and Sabrina Bezaire, Former Owners of Eszett in Silver Lake
Spencer and Sabrina Bezaire opened the Silver Lake restaurant Eszett in December 2019, just a few months before the pandemic’s first closures. They’d envisioned a neighborhood wine bar with a super seasonal menu, but to survive during COVID they pivoted to sandwiches and other easy takeout items.
Spencer hoped to get back to his more chef-driven vision for Eszett, but customers were used to the fast-casual menu. At the same time, wages increased after the pandemic, adding to their financial difficulties. The final blow came when the restaurant’s landlord told the couple they could no longer use a portion of the parking lot for outdoor dining.
“It’s just hard to justify being at work for 12 to 14 hours a day,” Spencer says, “and also not make any money.” The Bezaires closed Eszett in January 2023. They sold everything they owned, including their house in Los Angeles, and moved to Orcas Island in Washington state.
But then they got a chance to open up a small restaurant of their own, Lone Pine Larder. Spencer said he couldn’t pass up the chance. They just finished remodeling the building and they’re close to opening up as a lunch deli with pantry items.
They’re keeping things simple with only one or two additional employees and hours limited to lunch four days a week, affording the couple some time away to enjoy the outdoors on the island. “I don’t know if it’s fate,” Spencer says, “or just really dumb.”
Shawn Pham, Former Chef-Owner of Simbal and Fiona
Shawn Pham and his friend and then-partner Nicole Rucker (currently of Fat & Flour) opened Fiona on Fairfax Avenue in the winter of 2018. The all-day bakery-restaurant showcased Rucker’s famous pies and Pham’s creative menu with Vietnamese beef stew, sweet potato pancakes and more. But it closed just nine months after its debut due to lack of consistent business, Pham and Rucker said.
Pham had previously made a name for himself when he opened Simbal in Little Tokyo, but despite a positive review from Jonathan Gold and others, Pham shuttered Simbal in 2017 after two years in business.
For the last three years Pham has been a private chef. “It’s a better life,” he says, “better work-life balance, better pay, better pretty much everything.”
Does he miss leading a restaurant kitchen? “What I don’t miss is with a restaurant, there are lots of ups and downs that are completely out of your control. I personally couldn’t take it, and I prefer not to go through it if I don’t have to.”
The difficulties, he says, are affecting the entire scene. “People are playing it safe. Why increase the risk of not making it by doing something different or pushing the boundaries when it’s hard enough as it is? What it means for diners is that it’s a little more monotonous, fewer choices, less new things.”
Pham says his much of his idealistic thinking is “out the window.” “If I opened a restaurant, I would just give people what they want. I would do Italian food. It’s the best food for a restaurant, customers accept it, they don’t question it, they’re happy to pay for it, no qualms about it.”
Kim Prince, Former Owner of Hotville Chicken
A Hotville Chicken restaurant was poised for success. Not only is Prince’s hometown of Nashville the birthplace of hot chicken, but Prince belongs to the family that invented the recipe in the 1930s. But the unfortunate opening date just four months before the COVID pandemic meant that it was an uphill battle from the start.
In December 2022, Prince made the difficult decision to close the restaurant. “You have to evolve,” Prince says. “I’m looking forward to what the Baldwin-Hills Crenshaw Plaza has to offer. I’m not going to cry about losing four walls because housing is going up and that’s something that the community needs.”
An existing partnership with friend Greg Dulan allowed Prince to quickly pivot to focus attention on the pair’s Dulanville food truck. “It’s been helpful to have the partnership and to lean on an established bricks-and-mortar to get the work done. Our food truck sustains itself and thankfully we’ve been able to roll about the city.”
In the year and a half since closing Hotville Chicken, Prince has dabbled in private cheffing, fried chicken demonstrations, culinary mentorships, meal subscription services and brand collaborations. But Prince still has a dream of opening an L.A. restaurant dedicated to her family’s hot chicken recipe.
“There’s no limit,” Prince says. “I have so much faith. As long as the chickens are hatching, I’m gonna fry them and I’m gonna make Nashville hot chicken.”
Carlos Salgado Pauses Taco Maria After 10 Years
When the lease was up in July 2023, it seemed like a good time for Taco Maria owners Carlos and Emilie Salgado to take a pause. Taco Maria had spearheaded the Alta California cuisine movement, was named The Times’ 2018 Restaurant of the Year, earned a Michelin star and a James Beard Award nomination for Carlos. Ten years later, it was clear they had outgrown the 28-seat restaurant.
“In order for our work moving forward to match the quality, scale and innovation that Taco Maria represented,” Carlos says, “it was going to require more thoughtfulness.” The break has also given the couple more family time with their young kids.
“Spending time with my young son and my younger daughter has been the most edifying and transformative experience. I owe it to them and to myself to be very careful in choosing how I return to daily service in a restaurant,” says the chef.
While Salgado is enjoying his break, he says Taco Maria will be a restaurant again before too long. “I am so moved that Taco Maria had the impact that it did and that it inspired a lot of people,” Salgado says. “The work that I do next under the name Taco Maria has to be better, it has to be carefully considered, it has to be healthy, and we are going to take the appropriate time to envision what that means and imagine a beautiful continuation of the work that we were doing.” I sincerely hope you find this “Why These Five Former LA Restaurant Owners Left the Industry? Find Out Details” article helpful.