The decline of the once great city of Los Angeles continues apace as a 100-year-old restaurant has shuttered its doors for good. As former Vice President Kamala Harris said on the campaign trail: "You betta thank a union member!" 

Thanks to Unite Here! Local 11, the Original Pantry Cafe is no longer in business. So, yeah, Thank a union member. 

The Original Pantry Cafe, the historic downtown Los Angeles diner, closed its doors for good on Sunday.

The beloved restaurant first opened in 1924 and was once owned by former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan. The restaurant has been at Figueroa and 9th streets since 1950. Customers had been coming for decades for its old-school flair and breakfast dishes.

An Instagram story posted Sunday by the diner showed a huge line that wrapped around the block.

After Riordan's death two years ago, ownership shifted to the Riordan Trust.

Longtime workers at the restaurant say the new owners decided to close the restaurant rather than try to meet the demands of the workers' union. They held protests in hopes of saving their jobs.

Iconic Original Pantry Cafe in downtown LA closes after 100 years https://t.co/FECTrJVhB3

This restaurant was started by Dewey Logan, the godfather of my husband, on a corner, in a kiosk, until it had to be broken-down to build the Harbor Freeway and this building was built. I…

— Melissa C. Fountain (@timsandjoe3) March 4, 2025

Iconic Original Pantry Cafe in downtown LA closes after 100 years 

This restaurant was started by Dewey Logan, the godfather of my husband, on a corner, in a kiosk, until it had to be broken-down to build the Harbor Freeway and this building was built. I wonder what they will do with the photograph of my husband's Dad that is on the wall there.

If commerce, real estate, and small business are a reflection of the beating heart of a city, then Los Angeles is in heart failure. The closure of the Pantry is an indication that L.A. is in the final stages of the disease.

Loyal customers waited for hours on Sunday to eat one more time at the iconic diner, located on the corner of Figueroa Street and James Wood Boulevard in downtown L.A.

“We’re hoping we’re not going to have to say goodbye,” one customer shared with KTLA’s Angeli Kakade. “I think you really don’t, it stays in your heart forever.”

Even today, there are very few good eating places open 24 hours in L.A., and when I moved there in the late '80s, there were even less. After a night of clubbing or crawling the city, you wanted a place where you could hang out some more with your crew, as well as get a quality meal. Because, let's be honest: Denny's is just gross. So, the Original Pantry Cafe was the place, and in my younger years in L.A. I frequented the joint and inhaled their pancakes and waffles on the regular: they were the best in the city. 

In 1981, former LA mayor Richard Riordan purchased the Original Pantry Cafe after a server told him that he was eating too slowly while reading a book. “I fell in love with right then,” Riordan told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. Riordan operated the Pantry Cafe for decades, opening Riordan’s Tavern next door and feeding generations of Angelenos. The Pantry Cafe was famous for its lack of door locks, and only closed a few times in its hallowed history: It remained open during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising but was forced to temporarily close during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. After pandemic restrictions lifted, the restaurant reopened with limited service from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays and until 5 p.m. on weekends instead of its usual around-the-clock operation.

The Pantry is now no longer, thanks to the restaurant's built-in workforce of proud union members. The leaders of Unite Here! Local 11 wanted a guarantee that their people would have jobs at the restaurant even when it changed ownership. Cue the cries of "Hear! Hear!" from those federal workers who think they should never be fired. Also union members.

While news of the trust selling the pantry has been ongoing for months, Unite Here! Local 11 – representing restaurant employees – was trying to negotiate a contract with the trust to help workers keep their jobs even if the restaurant sells. 

Demonstrations took place this week to keep the pantry open – without success.

Facts: Unite Here! has been a thorn in the side of the Riordan Trust for quite some time, which no doubt factored into the Trust's decision to close the restaurant. So, consider their protest one last gasp for relevancy.

When Riordan passed away in 2023, his family’s trust assumed ownership and planned to sell the restaurant to fund its philanthropic operations. Even after its closure yesterday, union workers protested in front of the restaurant past 6 p.m. Unite Here, which represents the workers, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board on February 7 with allegations that the closure violates federal labor law. On February 25, the NLRB dismissed the charge due to “lack of cooperation from the Charging Party.” The union can still appeal the decision. Back in April 2023, a few weeks before Riordan died, a class-action lawsuit alleging unpaid overtime, rest, and meal breaks was filed on behalf of workers; the case remained in settlement talks as of February 2025.

Though the Richard J. Riordan trust is attempting to sell the business, the union still wants to ensure that new owners will honor the existing labor contract. “It’s still open from their perspective,” union spokesperson Kurt Peterson told the Times.

The community is gathered outside the Original Pantry Café to offer food boxes, pray, vigil and other support to fired workers as the Richard J. Riordan Trust closed the restaurant at 5pm #WeAreThePantry #SaveThePantry pic.twitter.com/ZMUJ2JD8Sd

— UNITE HERE Local 11 (@unitehere11) March 3, 2025

Guaranteed employment versus no employment at all? Seems like those leaders chose the latter to prove a point. This is the problem with this performative theater—it does nothing effective. It makes them appear as though they are doing something, when nothing is actually accomplished. No investor is going to be stupid enough to saddle themselves with a workforce that has built-in parameters and demands—he or she knows they would be held hostage and not reap any dividends from their investment. Unions need to read the room and wake up to reality. Of course, they won't, as this last statement attests:

The union told KTLA that as of Sunday, the trust wouldn’t say if they had a buyer lined up or not, but representatives said the fight isn’t over.

The original Pantry Cafe closed in LA but even as of today the Union and their workers wanted to force them to keep the restaurant open and make a deal with the Union. Now all those people who worked at that restaurant are out of work, maybe the union can take care of them. https://t.co/tFbb2lLb8c

— Diane (@SoCalValleyGal) March 4, 2025

There you have it. Former mayor Richard Riordan loved Los Angeles, and his ownership of the Original Pantry Cafe was a reflection of this. It's a shame that a restaurant that represented the fabric of a community and a piece of Los Angeles history has now become history.