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Welcome to the Year in Eater 2024 — our annual tradition that looks back at the highs, lows, and in-betweens of Los Angeles’s restaurant scene. Today, LA’s finest food writers, editors, reporters, and a few select others with strong opinions share the restaurants that stepped up in small and big ways for their community over the past year. Farley Elliott, SFGATE SoCal Bureau Chief I will never not put No Us Without You here.
Bill Esparza, Eater LA contributor Moo’s Craft Barbecue is a busy restaurant that shows up for all events, donating their food and time to so many. I feel they are a couple, Andrew and Michelle, we all can count on. Cathy Chaplin, GastronomyBlog.
com Prime Pizza always doing the most in every community where they operate by donating to local public school activities. Karen Palmer, Contributing Los Angeles Editor, SFGate I live in Mar Vista, and I respect the way David Kuo is creating a community hub with Fatty Mart and another upcoming concept (all around the corner from Little Fatty). There’s some newfound energy in the area.
Hadley Tomicki, Co-Founder, L.A. TACO It’s inspiring to watch Keith Corbin and Daniel Patterson continue to focus on community outreach through cooking and the restaurant business, including reopening Locol as a nonprofit, and announcing plans to expand on this work with the opening of Jaca on West Third Street in 2025.
Rebecca Roland, Editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Budonoki’s community meal nights — Makanai Mondays — exemplified the restaurant’s commitment to showing up for the neighborhood. Serving affordable meals that feel as equally thoughtful as the rest of the menu is what that restaurant is all about. Joshua Lurie, FoodGPS.
com founder Diego Argoti doesn’t currently have a restaurant, but it was cool to see the Estrano and Poltergeist chef continue his annual tradition, feeding people for free on Thanksgiving. This year he served Thanksgiving leftover ramen and tom kha gai noodle soup in Silver Lake to people who secured a time slot by sending an Instagram direct message. Mona Holmes, Editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest Every year, I marvel at the work of Regarding Her .
Whenever I hear of what they’re doing for restaurants, I marvel at how they find the time to make a difference. Matthew Kang, Lead Editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest I really enjoyed seeing the turn that Locol took to reopen as a community-focused nonprofit, though I wonder if even those efforts will stick unless people gravitate toward it. I always marvel at the excellent work that LA Loves Alex’s Lemonade does every year.
It’s the one food event that I feel great about attending because almost every chef and restaurateur is on-site to help raise funds for the fight against childhood cancer. There are a lot of huge for-profit food events, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but LALAL is my favorite every year because of its charitable perspective. Related Sign up for our newsletter.
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