Outside on the windowsill, a silver bucket advertises “FREE MASK. Stay safe, Boyle Heights!” Inside, there’s an empty dining room.
Chef Jonathan Perez hoped that World Cup viewing parties, game-day specials and a new summer menu would bring guests to Distrito Catorce, a Boyle Heights gastropub where he heads an inventive Mexican menu. But due to a catastrophic, still-burning warehouse fire that began in the neighborhood last Wednesday, the restaurant and bar sits nearly deserted.
Restaurants and bars in the neighborhood are reporting drastic drops in business after thousands of Angelenos sheltered in place under a constant plume of smoke. The decrease in customers comes at a crucial time, after years of hardships for local restaurateurs.
“It will set us back,” Perez said of the weeklong fire. “As a business owner you want to be upset, but you also understand the long-term health concerns. You want everybody to be safe, but you want everybody to have a good experience here.”
On Tuesday, Distrito Catorce opened at 9 a.m. By the afternoon, Perez and his small team had served seven guests in total. Foot traffic has slowed to a trickle, and the restaurant’s layout — with an almost entirely open wall that looks onto one of Boyle Height’s busiest thoroughfares — isn’t helping. He cannot cover the open windows without appearing closed, and he cannot afford to close the restaurant even for one day in the hopes that a customer might enter.
At nearby Milpa Kitchen, which houses Perez’s lauded taqueria, Macheen, he said business has dropped 60% since the fire began.
On Tuesday, Distrito Catorce’s neighboring Mariachi Plaza, a normally bustling landmark, felt desolate.
Thousands of L.A. residents are advised to stay indoors, especially in Boyle Heights and its neighboring areas, though the wind continues to shift the direction of the smoke and toxic air throughout the region. The weeklong fire occurred at a cold storage warehouse operated by Lineage — previously known as Lineage Logistics — and could take days to extinguish. Both Lineage and fire officials have said they believe the fire began on the roof of the building, which is also home to solar panels.
Perez and his Distrito Catorce business partner, Guillermo Piñon, have been handing out masks to customers and passersby in an attempt to keep them safe.
“There’s no safe level of exposure to particle pollution,” said Will Barrett, assistant vice president for nationwide clean air policy at the American Lung Assn.
At first, Perez said the wind shifted the smoke away from his restaurants. But over the weekend the smoke and the scent of chemicals permeated everything, and eventually he rescheduled his team’s hours, sometimes cooking and managing the whole restaurant with Piñon alone.
“It almost smelled like burnt plastic,” Perez said. “It looked all sunny, and then it just looked dark, as if something was blocking the sun.”
He and Piñon have since ordered a roll-down awning that will cover their open wall without appearing closed, and expect to receive and install it by the end of the week. Ordering takeout or delivery from local businesses can help them stay afloat, Perez said.
And until the fire is extinguished, he and Piñon are operating depending on where the wind blows.
At legendary taco truck Mariscos Jalisco, chef-owner Raul Ortega is still serving crispy, shrimp-stuffed tacos dorados and will continue to do so, but only because his food truck remains out of the smoke and the wind’s direct path.
“Fortunately for us, the wind is blowing against our direction,” he said. “We didn’t have any issues with it, sometimes not even the smell. We’re very fortunate, but other people are not that lucky. We’ve been working every day.”
Ortega, who lives in the neighborhood, regularly passes businesses that have temporarily shuttered because of the fire. “I see smoke right on the surface of the street,” he said. Over the weekend, while visiting his gym in Monterey Park, he said the smell of smoke was far more noticeable; at his taco truck on Olympic Boulevard, it’s “very little.”
Business, he said, has remained steady for him in that area, but if the wind shifts toward his truck he will temporarily close too. “We might have to do something about it, because we don’t need to be in that situation,” Ortega said.
Another local taquero hasn’t been so fortunate.
Guisados co-owner Armando De La Torre Sr. said foot traffic along his stretch of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue was already affected by street construction. Now, it’s decimated.
“Due to the fires, a lot of people are not going outside,” he said. “And they don’t want to be wherever there’s air conditioning, because that just refilters the same smoke.”
De La Torre founded the local taco chain in Boyle Heights in 2006, and operates it with his family. Since last Wednesday both in-person and online ordering at the original location have seen a drop in sales of at least 20%. The Echo Park outpost has also seen dips in sales, he said, and customers are now regularly asking about how the Boyle Heights taqueria is faring.
The family’s burger spot — George’s Burger Stand — sits three blocks away and has seen similar drops in business, according to De La Torre.
His staff now wear masks — especially when they say they start to feel the effects of the smoke in their throats.
“I don’t know what to tell them, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know when it’s going to go away,” De La Torre said. “I feel pretty helpless, which I am … . We’re in the hospitality business. We need to be there whenever people want to come out. That’s the business we’re in.”
Like Perez, he believes the best way to help is to support small businesses, especially restaurants, which have also been battered by increasing costs of food, insurance, gas and other necessary operations expenditures.
“It’s a tough go right now,” De La Torre said. “I don’t like complaining, because I’m blessed compared to some people. However, these little things do affect us, and we just hold on and hope this too shall pass.”
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