Against all odds, Tyler Wells’ Altadena restaurant remains standing. Like roughly 10,000 homes and structures in the area, many of the surrounding businesses burned in January’s Eaton fire, changing the mountain town’s community and landscape forever.
After the neighborhood’s destruction Wells thought his restaurant would never reopen, but on Saturday, Betsy — formerly called Bernee — will serve its rustic, seasonal cuisine once again. It will usher in customers for the return of its hearth-fired menu in what Wells hopes will be a beacon of light and a gathering place for Altadena after so much pain.
Betsy — near the corner of Lake Avenue and Mariposa Street — is flanked by remnants of the fire’s destruction: to the west, a hollowed-out brick structure that once held the local hardware store, its metal light fixtures still wilted from the heat; to the south, a leveled lot that was once a Spanish-language school; and north, there’s what’s left of a pottery studio and neighborhood stalwarts Café de Leche and Rancho Bar.
“Fire’s an incredible thing, and also will decimate an entire city and ruin people’s lives,” Wells said. “The allure of it for me is to not control it — and this is getting spiritual — but to find that harmony. Maybe we can do our tiniest little part to restore some of that balance.”
Bernee debuted Dec. 7, 2024. In its one month of service before the fire, guests dined on steaks, cast-iron potatoes and rich, fluffy burnt cheesecakes in the glow of its wood-fired hearth. The oven, overseen by lead chef Paul Downer, burned through almond wood and red oak, required near-’round-the-clock staff, and functioned as a baking oven by day and a blazing grill and roasting oven for meat, fish, beans and charred vegetables by night.
Wells had poured himself into the space, building his own tables, shelves and sleek wooden walls. Through personal duress, including the dissolution of his marriage and of his partnership in popular Los Feliz restaurant All Time, he found hope and focus in his new Altadena restaurant.
On Jan. 2 he moved to a new home, nearer to what is now Betsy, which is named for his late mother. On the day of the Eaton fire he told his therapist, “I don’t know, man, I could see myself being happy here. There’s a little crack with light being shown in.” He had a morning of revelation and optimism. That night, located practically along the Eaton Canyon trail, his new house was directly in the fire’s path.
Wells never imagined the fire would reach the city. On Jan. 7 he worked the restaurant til close, and helped his staff leave early and chart safer routes back to their homes.
“I was like, ‘The restaurant’s fine, you guys get home safe,’” he said. “Like, this restaurant is so far from the mountain, a fire can’t burn through all of this. Little did I know about these grapefruit-sized embers getting blasted down the mountain.”
That night he evacuated a few of his own belongings. Then he woke up to roughly 150 text messages, many simply sharing statements like, “It’s all gone.”
“I was just like, ‘OK, the restaurant’s gone. My house is gone. I’m separated. I just had this moment: ‘I’m out. I’m leaving now,’” he said. “I was just like, ‘I’m not coming back to L.A. This is it.’”
He began to envision starting over anew, maybe in another state, maybe in Mexico. Not two hours later, Paola Guasp — owner of Amara Kitchen, which also burned — reached out: Wells’ restaurant was, somehow, still standing.
He drove to Mariposa Street to check on Bernee and happened to meet one of his staff, who’d also decided to visit the restaurant at that moment. They embraced, then Wells grabbed two cases of the most expensive wine in the building and drove north without a destination.
Wells had befriended potter Victoria Morris and her husband, Morgan Bateman, occasionally dropping by the ceramics studio housed in the building behind Bernee. It burned in January. So did their home.
As Wells drove north he called an Ojai hotel and booked a few nights there, then called Morris and Bateman, who have a home in Ojai. Morris told him to cancel his hotel. “I was like, ‘What? What do you mean?’” he asked. “And there was a long pause, and she’s like, ‘Tyler, f— you. You live with us now.’”
For eight weeks they processed the fire and their losses and grief. Those meals and months with them, he said, are moments he’ll cherish for the rest of his life.
He then traveled to Mexico City to visit friends, and his return to California, he vowed, would only be a temporary one.
A call from the Ecology Center, a sprawling farm and market stand in San Juan Capistrano, changed his course. Could he help reshape the onsite cafe, molding its menus and programming closer to the farm’s bounty? No, he thought, he wasn’t ready. Wells traveled to Colorado, but he couldn’t get the Ecology Center out of his mind; he cut his trip short and headed back, throwing himself into work on the farm, its cafe and ticketed dinners and events. Then he called in Bernee reinforcements.
Joey Messina, a cook at Betsy, agreed to temporarily relocate to the farm. Wells vacated the Airstream trailer on the property for him, and took up new residency on the property’s yurt. When they needed waitstaff help they called Tom Oakes, also currently at Betsy; he trekked down to join them and Wells relocated again, this time pitching a tent between two orange trees. He remained there for eight weeks. More staff followed.
They called it “dirtbag summer camp,” working 18 hours a day, then cooking luxurious meals with produce pulled right from the ground. These dinners convinced him to stay.
“L.A.’s got some challenges that are really hard for me as a business owner, but these are my people,” he said. “These are the greatest friends I’ve ever known in my life. … It’s hot and it’s expensive and it’s a pain in the ass to do business here, but the greatest people in the world are here.”
After its closure, most of Bernee’s staff found work in other restaurants. Some, like server Courtney Johnson — the new curator of Betsy’s wine list — told The Times that they were ready to leave the industry entirely, unless Wells reopened his restaurant.
“They made the decision that the restaurant’s reopening,” Wells said. “I had to just pull a few levers here and there, like, ‘Here’s your restaurant back.’ I can’t believe it.”
The timing, he said, also began to feel right. The first months were horrifying, filled with trauma and smoke. In spring when construction crews began clearing the lots, he felt slightly optimistic. Through the summer, grass began to grow. The air felt cleaner. He saw signs of life returning to the community.
“I just realized: We’re right at the bottom of this climb, and it’s a hell of a climb, and I want to be a part of it,” he said. “This is where I fit in.”
What kind of a member of this community would he be, he thought, if he only returned once all the damage had cleared?
He renamed the restaurant and tweaked the menu for seasonality, but nearly everything remains as it did during Bernee’s single month of service. He’s gotten that wood-fired hearth back up and running. He deep-cleaned the air ducts and filters and restocked its kitchen.
On Aug. 3 he threw his first dinner at Betsy, cooking for friends, family, neighbors, and guests who’d cut their dinner short on the night the fire began in January. Wells gave the staff a pre-opening speech that was so unexpectedly emotional it brought him to tears in front of them all.
“I was just like, ‘This restaurant is not a restaurant,’” he said. “That’s a silly thing, but what it represents is something so much bigger and deeper, and what it means for people in the community.”
On Aug. 24, during another practice run of dinner service, a customer approached Wells in the dining room and tapped him gently on the shoulder from behind.
He didn’t know her, she said softly over the din of the guests, but she lives in the neighborhood. She said she needed to tell him that the return of the restaurant felt like the start of something new for Altadena, and she was so glad it came back.
“I think people do see it as a beacon, just to let a little bit of light in,” Wells said later. “It’s not going to be just us, obviously — I think we need another 1,000 examples of that — but it’s so meaningful to me. That’s what restaurants have always been for me, but to be able to do it in this kind of time and place is really powerful. It feels like a calling for all of us.”
Betsy is at 875 E. Mariposa St. in Altadena, open daily from 5 p.m. until close.
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