Downtown LA’s Original Pantry Cafe Is Back – Eater Los Angeles

Downtown LA’s Original Pantry Cafe Is Back  Eater Los Angeles

The iconic Original Pantry Cafe will reopen on November 19, and the timing couldn’t be better for Los Angeles. After the century-old diner closed in March 2025, the owners announced that the Downtown restaurant would reopen, but no one knew when. With restaurant closures continuing at a constant pace in 2026, the return of one of Southern California’s oldest restaurants comes as welcome news, first reported by SF Gate. The Original Pantry Cafe will collaborate with the nonprofit Hope the Mission, a prominent service provider for the unhoused in Greater Los Angeles. Real estate entrepreneur Leo Pustilnikov became the new owner in September 2025. SF Gate’s report also states every meal will help fund the nonprofit while providing job training and support to those caught up in the cycle of home insecurity.

Some former Original Pantry employees, many of whom worked at the restaurant for decades, will also return to work, as Pustilnikov has struck a deal with the hospitality workers union, Unite Here Local 11. The Original Pantry debuted in 1924 on the corner of Figueroa and Ninth Streets. Former LA mayor Richard Riordan purchased the restaurant in 1981; when it closed its doors on March 2, 2025, two years after Riordan’s death, a conflict between then-owners the Richard J. Riordan family trust and Unite Here Local 11 over