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Comfort food destination All Day Baby, founded by restaurateur Lien Ta and the late chef Jonathan Whitener in November 2019 , announced on Instagram it would be closing on December 15. Over its five years in business, the Silver Lake corner space underwent a full transformation from a vegetarian Indian restaurant into a reasonably-priced diner with patty melts, biscuit sandwiches, smoked chicken, sticky buns, and conchas as a collaboration between Whitener and opening pastry director Thessa Diadem. Bar director Harry Chin devised a whimsical cocktail menu with boozy milkshakes, alcoholic Orange Bang, and horchata while Danielle Francoise Fournier assembled the thoughtful wine list.
Whitener and Ta first partnered in 2016 at Koreatown’s Here’s Looking at You , serving a compelling blend of international flavors through the lens of Los Angeles’s diverse dining scene . It received high praise from Los Angeles Times critic Jonathan Gold and then- Eater national critic Bill Addison , who re-reviewed it in 2022 for the Times . All Day Baby was their more casual follow-up in Silver Lake meant to serve diners from breakfast through dinner, as its name suggested.
In February 2024, Whitener passed away at the age of 36 (no cause of death has been reported). The restaurant world mourned his passing, with tributes written across social media . Early in All Day Baby’s operation, almost two-thirds of the restaurant’s sales were based on its popular biscuit sandwiches.
Less than four months after opening, All Day Baby, as well as restaurants across Los Angeles, had to navigate mandatory dining room shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2020, Ta spoke at the Democratic National Convention to share the plight of LA’s embattled restaurant scene . A few months later, in October 2020, All Day Baby took over the adjacent parking lot to open an outdoor dinner concept called Helluva Time , while continuing to serve its daytime favorites via takeout only.
In August 2022, All Day Baby pivoted again with a Vietnamese-inflected evening menu called Tet-a-Tet that Ta hoped would resonate with Angelenos and bring in the dinner guests that had previously eluded the all-day diner. Ta made a lengthy, heartfelt announcement on Instagram on November 15 to explain the restaurant’s history and reason for closure. She said the writer’s and actor’s strikes in 2023 contributed to a slowdown in business: “In this town rn [sic], there are not enough ppl [sic] or incomes able to fill/sustain these [sic] many restaurants + the costs they’re up against.
Especially if a landlord isn’t an ally.” Ta’s Koreatown restaurant Here’s Looking at You will continue to operate under chef Daniel Cutler. Mona Holmes contributed additional reporting.
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