In April, an anonymous tip led Liliana Robertson, manager of Cielito Lindo, to a horrifying discovery: Employees appeared to be skimming cash from the nearly century-old Mexican American restaurant, an icon that’s welcomed visitors to Olvera Street for decades.
As much as $600 per shift was being taken at the restaurant, company records showed. Several employees were terminated. Without a staff, and also faced with electrical issues, Robertson and two cousins decided to temporarily close the restaurant’s doors on May 12.
Located on the site where the pueblo of Los Angeles was born in 1781, and home to multigenerational family-owned restaurants and businesses dating back to the 1930s, Olvera Street has long served as a historic and cultural landmark for L.A.’s Mexican community.
Founded in 1937 by Robertson’s great-grandmother, Aurora Guerrero, Cielito Lindo is known for its hand-rolled taquitos drenched in avocado salsa. For many years, the marigold-yellow stand was a hot spot for tourists, Dodger fans and late-night crowds.
But after years of declining foot traffic, rising expenses and falling behind on rent, Cielito Lindo is one of several small Mexican-owned businesses on Olvera Street struggling to stay open and continue their family legacies.
The legacy of Olvera Street
These days, the cobblestone street lined with puestos selling Mexican crafts, clothing and souvenirs remains quiet throughout the week. Gift shops and artisanal stores are devoid of life, and restaurants have plenty of seats to spare.
In its current stillness, Olvera Street is not so different from the neglected alley that wealthy San Francisco socialite Christine Sterling discovered a century ago.
When Sterling first visited what was then called Wine or Vine Street in 1926, she was disheartened by the “forgotten, forsaken” alley with dilapidated buildings that once reflected a vibrant city center. At the time, 27 buildings were scheduled for demolition, including the historic Avila Adobe, the oldest standing house in L.A., built in 1818.
Inspired by California’s history, Sterling and other boosters sought to rename the alley after the first county judge, Agustín Olvera. Sterling began a three-year campaign to turn it into a social and commercial center, set as a romantic reimagining of Spanish and Mexican culture.
In 1929, she finally succeeded. The City Council closed the street for renovations, and the work began.
With the help of city engineers and prison laborers provided by the Sheriff’s Department, Sterling transformed the street in less than a year, putting in tile floors, planting trees, grading the street and setting up puestos for vendors.
The new Olvera Street opened to the public on Easter Sunday 1930, attracting thousands. Throughout the 1930s, the street would become a hub for local Mexican artisans and a popular tourist destination.
Over the next few decades, Sterling invited local business owners to open storefronts and restaurants on Olvera Street, including Cielito Lindo and La Luz del Día.
Guerrero, who had been selling taquitos from her cart to railroad workers in 1934, opened a brick-and-mortar on Olvera in 1937, thanks to Sterling’s prompting.
Jesus “Jack” Berber purchased La Luz del Día grocery store in 1941, located across from Olvera Street in what’s now a parking lot. Sterling, a friend of Berber’s, encouraged him to open a restaurant, and in 1959, Berber partnered with his cousin, Pancho Cazares, to establish La Luz del Día in its current space on Olvera.
The restaurant is now managed by Berber’s grandson, Gregory Berber, who took the helm from his father in 2008, when the market was still a bustling center. Today, like Cielito Lindo and many other businesses on Olvera Street, La Luz del Día struggles to remain open.
“There’s no way I can do another year of loss and be able to keep this place going,” said Gregory.
The steady decline of a historic center
Before the pandemic, Olvera Street saw 1 million to 2 million visitors per year, Berber said. Now, it receives about 300,000 to 500,000 annual visitors. Many businesses start closing in the afternoon, once foot traffic slows.
Some legacy businesses have already shut down, including long-standing La Golondrina, which closed in 2024 after facing maintenance issues and over $242,000 in back rent and fees. And the iconic burro stand at the entrance of Olvera, where a stuffed donkey has welcomed visitors since 1968, was set to be evicted earlier this year.
“It feels like it lost its heartbeat,” said Cielito Lindo’s Robertson. “The soul is kind of fading as our older generations pass on, and that’s, I think, where the sadness comes from.”
Since the deaths of Robertson’s aunts, Susanna MacManus and Dianna Robertson, earlier this year, Guerrero’s seven great-grandchildren are now fighting to continue the family legacy.
The family restaurant has also faced several challenges this year, including a lawsuit among the cousins, a damaged electrical panel and plumbing issues at the Cielito Lindo commissary on Broadway, which temporarily served as a second restaurant location during the pandemic.
The many setbacks led the family to start a GoFundMe following the temporary closure. Since starting the fundraiser in mid-May, the family has received more than $50,000 in donations.
“It’s so overwhelming. It’s an incredible weight on our shoulders, but at the end, I think it’s just gonna turn out beautifully,” Robertson said. “I’m hoping that this is a turning point for us.”
She said they hope to reopen the restaurant by the end of the month. In the meantime, Cielito Lindo is offering orders for pickup and shipping at its commissary.
Vendors said the decline in foot traffic began a few years before COVID-19 hit. Though they began to recover in the years after, fewer employees working in nearby federal offices, a growing homeless population, ICE raids last summer and downtown protests stunted their growth.
“It was like one hit right after the other,” said Valerie Hanley, owner of gift shop Casa California. “So it’s been very hard to recover.”
Berber said he’s lost more than 50% in sales since the pandemic, and has had to let go 10 employees. “People just forgot about Olvera Street, and didn’t realize it was doing so bad,” he said.
Several merchants reported being behind on their rents, as the low sales are not nearly enough to cover costs.
“Those [legacy] families are suffering to stay here. People are using their Social Security to stay here, and it’s getting harder and harder to be able to do that,” Berber said.
In addition to rent arrears and declining sales, merchants are burdened by the cost of repairing aging buildings.
The city owns the 44-acre park known as El Pueblo Historic Monument. While the city maintains the streets, tenants are responsible for rent and building maintenance costs. Robertson said she had to wait for the city to approve the electrical renovation plans, causing a delay in the restaurant’s reopening.
After Bertha and David Gomez became the new owners of La Golondrina Cafe in 2022, they discovered a plumbing problem that prevented them from opening. The Gomezes sued the city over the plumbing costs in 2023, but the lawsuit soon became too costly to continue, leading them to file for bankruptcy and permanently close.
Business owners have also raised safety concerns with the homeless population lingering near Olvera Street, as some individuals have caused disturbances or set up tents in the plaza.
“Some of them are having mental-health crises, and that can be really challenging between security and merchants and tourists, and it doesn’t always feel like a clean and safe place to come with your kids,” Robertson said.
Domenika Lynch, the general manager of El Pueblo, said they collaborate with the LAPD to bring in security, with regular patrols throughout the day.
What’s next for the landmark block?
Lynch, who was hired as manager of El Pueblo in October 2025, said she plans to create sustainable change that will attract visitors to Olvera Street and keep them coming.
“Clean and safe” are top priorities for Lynch, in addition to planning upcoming cultural events, including the inaugural El Pueblo de Los Angeles Heritage Festival that will take place during the World Cup from Friday to Sunday, near the Union Station fan zone.
“We know that the World Cup is our reset,” Lynch said. “The Heritage Festival will introduce the world to Los Angeles.”
The festival, which Lynch hopes will become an annual event, will feature food, music, team apparel and family activities, in partnership with local museums.
El Pueblo also launched Mercado Night earlier this year, featuring games, salsa dancing, live music and an art walk on the second Friday of each month.
Queer Mercado, a monthly queer community pop-up previously held at the East Los Angeles Civic Center, hosted its first event on Olvera Street in May, with another that was held Saturday.
“We’re doing our best, and we want this legacy for our community, and we want this legacy for the rest of the street and for the city,” she said.
In a nod to the strategies that Sterling used to reinvigorate the block a century ago, Lynch is looking for new tenants to fill empty storefronts to address criticism regarding the current lack of diversity in retail and services at Olvera Street.
“We’ll hear tourists say, ‘It’s all the same,’” Lynch said. “There’s room to curate.”
Some merchants hope that by sharing their stories online and spreading awareness about legacy businesses, people will remember Olvera Street and return.
“I’m trying my hardest to make sure that people know about our stories and where the immigrant Mexican identity comes from,” said Berber of La Luz del Día. “It was the pobladores that came from San Gabriel Mission to La Placita Olvera to start L.A., and that’s the impetus of the whole immigrant story here.”
Ever since sharing his story on a Reddit post in April that got over 300,000 views, Berber said he’s seen more foot traffic. However, it is still not enough to sustain the restaurant in the long term.
“We’re just hoping to keep reminding people to come visit us, because that’s the only way this historical, cultural landmark can survive,” Berber said.
Lynch said she is looking at outside grant funding and working with the City Council and mayor to determine how vendors can pay off their debts.
During the pandemic, the city forgave up to $2.6 million in rent, Lynch said. “But it was hard to rebuild, so people ended up back in the same situation,” she said. “It’s not just about rent forgiveness.”
Lynch believes the path forward for vendors is to adapt to current market and business practices. For example, many vendors are still cash-only, she said.
For Berber and other legacy families, the fight to keep their businesses open is about more than financial considerations. They see it as their duty to be stewards of Olvera Street and to preserve their family’s culture, traditions and heritage.
“Anytime I think about the past, it just brings all those memories,” Berber said. “My ultimate goal is to stay here, fight and figure out how to do it.”
Former Times staff writer Cindy Carcamo contributed to this report.
The post ‘People just forgot about Olvera Street.’ Historic L.A. restaurants on brink of closure appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
