Latest news with #ChiliJohn's
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Iconic Burbank restaurant Chili John's in danger of closing after 79 years
The Brief Established in 1946, Chili John's is the oldest restaurant in Burbank and a local landmark, featured in movies and TV shows. The restaurant reports drastically reduced sales post-COVID, with current revenue at only 10% of pre-pandemic levels. Despite its historical value, owner Steve Hager emphasizes the need for increased business to sustain operations. BURBANK, Calif. - Chili John's, a historic restaurant in Burbank, is facing the threat of closure due to a significant drop in business. What we know Chili John's has been serving multiple generations of families since 1946 and is a landmark on W. Burbank Blvd, known for its appearances in movies and TV shows. The restaurant is the oldest dining establishment in Burbank. Despite its historical significance and popularity, the restaurant has struggled to recover from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the onset of COVD, sales have plummeted to about 10% of pre-COVID levels, putting the business in jeopardy. What they're saying Owner Steve Hager expressed his concerns, stating, "It's just been super slow. We're not even making enough to pay our staff, our taxes, or our mortgage. We're going to be gone quick." Customer Christopher Drake emphasized the importance of the restaurant, saying, "It's a piece of history. The reason to keep it alive is the food is good and the people who work here are excellent." What you can do Hager has set up a fundraising page to help keep Chili John's open. He appreciates the donations received but hopes to continue serving customers at the restaurant. You can donate online here. The Source Information for this story is from an interview with the owner of Chili John's on March 22, 2025.
Los Angeles Times
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Food icons Jeremiah Tower and Alice Waters make peace over a bottle (or two) of Champagne
Champagne helps mend old wounds between food icons, L.A.'s own Willy Wonka, Andrea Crawford's Fillmore bakery, the essential restaurant workers you rarely notice, a redo of the legendary Judgment of Paris wine tasting, and can a new bar save Chili John's? I'm Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week's Tasting Notes. Depending on who you ask — and in this case I mean the two people at the heart of the question — it's been anywhere from 13 years to 30 years since Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower have spoken to each other. The two food icons had a famous falling out, in part because the rightly earned fame of Waters as the mother of California cuisine overshadowed Tower's significant contributions to food as we know it during his early years with Waters at Chez Panisse and later when he opened Stars in San Francisco. But last week at the Ojai Food + Wine Festival — a gathering of culinary superstars from around the world — all was forgiven. 'Last night, Alice walked into a room and encountered Jeremiah Tower, who she was not expecting to see, and Jeremiah was not expecting to see her,' said critic and author Ruth Reichl, who was hosting an onstage talk at the festival's Ojai Valley Inn with Waters. 'It was really, for me, one of the most satisfying moments in food in [a] long time. I mean, to see these two icons, happy to see each other.' 'I think I need a glass of Champagne to talk about it,' Waters said after Reichl asked her to describe the previous night's rapprochement. 'I walked into that space, which was so huge, and there were ice buckets all around the room filled with my favorite Champagne, just asking to be opened,' Waters said. 'And it happened to be a Champagne that Jeremiah and I shared a love for. I mean, really, we had been to that Champagne place, and I don't know what it was about it, but we just felt a huge connection ...' '... again ... ' came a voice from the audience. It was Tower, who was beaming as he finished her sentence. 'Again,' Tower repeated as he confirmed that they had renewed their connection. 'How many years has it been?' Waters, looking thrilled, said to Tower from the stage. 'Thirty?' 'Thirteen,' he said. 'Yeah. We really hadn't communicated, and all of a sudden [it was as if we] were back in the kitchen [at Chez Panisse] having the best time, working together talking together. But that Champagne helped.' 'Always does,' Tower responded with a huge grin. For those of you wondering, like me, which Champagne is loved so much by Waters and Tower, I found out later from Reichl that it's Krug Champagne. In fact, Tower — who was at the festival to curate and cook a lunch at the festival with chefs Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger, and Elizabeth Falkner — was hosting a caviar and Krug Champagne reception when he had his meeting with Waters. 'I was sitting next to Alice at dinner,' Reichl later told author Bill Buford during a live video conversation that two of them did for her Substack newsletter La Briffe, 'and she was just weeping all night and talking about forgiveness and how important this was to her.' Tower has previously said that he and Waters did see each other at least one other time since he left Chez Panisse in 1978. When he was promoting the 2017 documentary 'Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent,' directed Lydia Tenaglia, he told this paper's Margy Rochlin that was at Waters' table during the 40th anniversary celebration for the Chez Panisse. But at the time many were still trying to pit the two of them against each other, arguing over who did more to ignite what became known as California cuisine. Reichl, who witnessed the birth of the movement first hand, credits them both: 'I always felt like the combination of the two of them at Chez Panisse was like lightning in a bottle,' she told Buford. 'It was two people with completely different food aesthetics coming together and doing something magical.' Two other culinary legends had a surprise encounter last week. Mozza founder and Ojai Valley Inn culinary ambassador Nancy Silverton was at the Ojai Food + Wine Festival in part to host a dinner with chefs Jonathan Waxman, Evan Funke and Sarah Cicolini of the great Rome restaurant Santo Palato. On Saturday, she decided to take a short break from the festival to visit Andrea Crawford at Roan Mills Bakery in Fillmore. As former Times food editor Amy Scattergood wrote in 2007, Crawford first became a part of the California cuisine movement in the early 1980s when she started growing lettuce for Chez Panisse in Waters' Berkeley backyard. Then Wolfgang Puck talked Crawford into moving to Southern California so she could grow herbs and lettuces for Spago restaurant — which she did in the Encino backyard of Silverton's parents (at the time, Silverton was Spago's pastry chef). Crawford outgrew the space and eventually established the Kenter Canyon Farms brand that so many of us know from Southern California farmers markets. In 2012, she began growing wheat and the next year started baking bread in Fillmore under the Roan Mills label. In 2017, she opened the front of the bakery to the public as a retail operation. But Silverton had never visited. 'What a beautiful space! And it's big!' Silverton told Crawford as they discussed the price of eggs (which is why Crawford is baking less brioche these days), how she worked out more civilized baker's hours (instead of working through the night, her workers start at 4 a.m. and 5 a.m), and whether a lemon cake recipe from Silverton's cookbook 'The Cookie That Changed My Life' could work in the cool rooster-embossed cake pan sitting on top of Crawford's desk. I bought some of Crawford's gorgeous English muffins, a fantastic cherry pie, some Kenter Canyon arugula and my favorite Camino red wine vinegar made by Oakland's Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain. (I usually mail order the vinegar, a last remnant of the couple's great hearth-based restaurant, but I thought I'd save the postage since I was driving.) On the way back, the scent of chicken grilling outside Fillmore's La Plaza meat market, a favorite of Silverton's and her partner Michael Krikorian, was too tempting not to stop. And just before we made it back to downtown Ojai, Silverton made us stop at the Summit Drive-In to try their shakes, which the menu board promised are 'hand-scoop and hand-spun.' Silverton is partnering with 'Somebody Feed Phil' host Phil Rosenthal on a diner in L.A.'s Larchmont Village named Max and Helen's for Rosenthal's parents. And even though the diner should be ready to open in early summer and the two have been tasting shakes all over the place, Silverton the perfectionist doesn't think they quite have their shakes down. I didn't mind the stop — I especially loved the extra chocolate sauce that swirled around the chocolate shake. If you see a similar swirl at Max and Helen's later this summer, you'll know where it came from. Sonoma winemaker Pax Mahle, sommelier legend Patrick Cappiello (who founded Monte Rio Cellars), and Vinohead media company founder Josh Entman had the wild idea to recreate the Judgment of Paris, the 1976 taste-off that changed the course of winemaking in California when two of the state's wines, a 1973 Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, beat every other French wine in the competition. They're calling the new competition the 1976 Redo, and in January the trio hosted the first round of the competition in which any U.S. winemaker was allowed to enter. Times contributor David Rosoff, founder of the late Bar Moruno and curator of wine programs in many L.A. restaurants, joined 10 other wine pros to choose five finalists from 144 Chardonnays, 125 Cabernet Sauvignons, 80 Syrahs and 45 Chenin Blancs in one marathon tasting. (The final tasting will happen in May.) 'That's 394 wines, to be exact,' Rosoff writes in his account of the tasting. 'The most surprising category was unquestionably Chenin Blanc,' Rosoff writes. And 'the most consistently triumphant category'? Syrah. The story reveals more about what he 'learned about the state of American wine' and what the wine tasters did after they finished tasting nearly 400 bottles of wine. Hint: It involved more wine. Seamus Blackley, inventor of the Xbox game console, goes deep when he is obsessed. During the pandemic, as features columnist Todd Martens writes, he didn't just get into sourdough; he acquired centuries-old Egyptian yeast to bake bread. Now the physicist and tech entrepreneur is focused on chocolate — not from cacao harvested in tropical climates more suited to the plant, but from cacao grown right here in Southern California. 'Oh yes, we're going to have an L.A. chocolate company,' he told Martens. 'We're going to be aiming at a different peak flavor than other people are because we have different organisms,' Blackley added, alluding to microbes in Los Angeles versus the equator-adjacent regions in which cacao is typically grown. 'That's exciting.' How often do you pay attention to the person bringing you water in a restaurant or clearing your empty plate? Many customers make a point of thanking their server when the food arrives, especially in the days since the COVID pandemic, but the person busing your table can be easily overlooked. There are many restaurant jobs that customers rarely notice but that are essential to making the business work. Food's Cindy Carcamo profiled three restaurant workers for our Back of House series: utility worker Alfonso Lira, who clears tables, makes pizza dough and fixes the sound system, among many other duties at Santa Ana gastropub Chapter One; dishwasher Sophia Velador, who considers her work at Long Beach's Alder & Sage therapeutic; and line cook Tomas Saldaña, who makes the difficult-to-master radish pastries at Paradise Dynasty.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
One of L.A.'s oldest restaurants is at risk of closing. Could a new bar save it?
After an onslaught of recent restaurant closures, one of L.A.'s longest-running restaurants might join the ranks. Owners of Chili John's, a Burbank institution since 1946, say they'll have to close or sell the restaurant if business doesn't increase. But a new, adjacent bar could help the legendary chili diner stay afloat. 'People will tell me, 'Oh, you guys can't go out of business because you've been here so long,' but it doesn't actually work that way,' said co-owner Steve Hager. 'It is a business and it needs to make money and sustain itself in order to stay. …You can't keep a restaurant open when people only come once every year.' According to Hager, who owns Chili John's with his wife, Claudine, the business never recovered from COVID losses; currently they're grossing only 20% of pre-pandemic sales. Read more: Red Hot: Jonathan Gold reviews Chili John's Guests have dined on the famous chili for decades at the diner's U-shaped counter, at times flocking to try the long-simmered stew or sample the lauded icebox pie — both of which were served at the first Chili John's (and original bar) in Green Bay, Wis., before making their way out west. 'We have amazing chili in my opinion,' Hager said, 'but people aren't coming in to buy amazing chili — at least not enough in order for us to stay.' That chili recipe was written down by founder John Isaac roughly 130 years ago, a spin on chuck-wagon meat preservation that he served at his Wisconsin bar and restaurant. In 1946 his son moved west and opened his own outpost in Burbank. Claudine Hager's uncle, Gene Loguercio, purchased the business in the '80s as a longtime family friend to the Isaacs. In 2016 she and her husband began helping Loguercio's widow and Claudine's cousins with the business, and around 2019 they formally took the reins. Today she and her husband grind beef suet in-house, clarify it for four to six hours, then add the meat and simmer for an additional 16 to 20 hours. The tart but creamy icebox pie, another signature, is the same as it was in 1900 when it was served in Isaac's Wisconsin bar. 'It is wonderful chili, dense and comforting, lean and hearty, with a cumin wallop and a subtle, smoky heat that creeps up on you like the first day of a Santa Ana wind,' Jonathan Gold wrote in 1991. 'It's the kind of stuff that stays with you for a while, flavoring your breath for half a day even if you don't pile on the onions.' From 2017 to 2019, Hager remembers a line of guests out the door and down the block, there to buy chili and sit at the restaurant's U-shaped counter. Now, he said, he's lucky if 10 people are filling the 25 swiveling orange stools along the horseshoe. On March 20 the Hagers launched a GoFundMe campaign, hoping to crowdsource finances to keep the historic restaurant afloat. They're also banking on the launch of the Taproom at Chili John's, an adjacent bar that's taken four years to open. But, he said, they might not have enough funds to last through the bar's opening. A Thursday Instagram post announcing the fundraiser elicited concern from fans and community members, including longtime supporter and comedian Patton Oswalt. 'The only thing that can tame the summer heat of Burbank are the harsh chilies and creamy pastas on hand at Chili John's,' Oswalt wrote in a message to The Times. 'Once that place goes, it's the apocalypse.' A 2021 appearance on reality show 'Restaurant Recovery' helped diversify the menu with burgers, specialty hot dogs, chicken sandwiches and fries, and began the bar's renovation next door. It also provided a bump in business due to the exposure, but those visits have come and gone. 'We're doing worse now than we did during COVID,' Hager said. Many L.A. restaurants trying to remain afloat from pandemic losses continued to struggle during the 2023 entertainment industry strikes. Many still have not recovered from the ripple effects of the strikes and the general downturn in local production. For a frequent filming location like Chili John's — which has appeared in 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,' 'Twin Peaks,' 'Star Trek' and 'I Am the Night,' among others — the drop in business proved devastating. For years, the restaurant served as a filming locale once or twice a month. Last year, it wasn't rented for filming at all. Hager said that the previous year it was rented for two commercials, which typically do not pay as much as a feature film or miniseries. He added that the restaurant's clientele primarily work in the entertainment industry at nearby studios; without a pickup in production, its client base nearly vanished. Read more: This must be Burbank: A neighborhood guide The restaurant might have already closed had it not been for Hager's disability pension from his years in the military. Last year he received a retroactive deposit for two years' worth of payments; without much income from the restaurant, the Hagers have been putting the pension money into paying staff and the restaurant's bills. Recently, they ran through their retroactive lump sum. Soon their property taxes will come due. There's not much more they feel they can do to sustain, and Hager told The Times he hasn't paid himself in years. 'Right now is basically when all my savings went to zero,' he said. They're hoping that the adjacent Taproom at Chili John's — which is currently soft opening on weekends and set to fully debut in April — could change their future and be more relevant for the neighborhood. Chili fans, fear not: Bowls of the signature beef chili will be available at the bar alongside the chicken chili and the organic lentil-and-quinoa versions — even in flight, or sampler, form — alongside the chili spaghetti, chili dog and chili burger. But the taproom also will serve new burrata salads, charcuterie boards, a salmon plate, a steak sandwich and gourmet s'mores, with dishes inspired by Hager's 15 years spent traveling in the Coast Guard through Sonoma County, New Orleans, New England and beyond. (A favorite of his, a beloved New Orleans peanut butter burger, also is planned to make an appearance.) Local craft beer, calimocho and wine — keeping glasses around $10 — also can be found at the taproom. 'We're excited, it's just that we don't know if we're even going to be able to [financially] last through the opening,' Hager said. 'We've been putting a lot of money out for equipment and the kegs of beer for our tap system, our cases of wine and the food. We have reached a point where we're almost completely out of money, and we're not going to be able to pay the property taxes or the mortgage.' The Hagers hope to not only maintain the cherished restaurant for history's sake but to keep the restaurant in the family. Read more: The 25 best classic diners in Los Angeles The restaurant is set to turn 80 next year. With renewed support from the community, they're hoping guests will be able to gather around that horseshoe counter for from-scratch chili made from a century-old recipe at Chili John's 80th birthday, and for years to come. 'Even if people don't want to give us donations for the GoFundMe, I was hoping that maybe that would just make people aware,' Hager said. 'The problem would fix itself if we can just have enough people come and enjoy our food.' Chili John's, 2018 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sign up for our Tasting Notes newsletter for restaurant reviews, Los Angeles food-related news and more. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
21-03-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
One of L.A.'s oldest restaurants is at risk of closing. Could a new bar save it?
After an onslaught of recent restaurant closures, one of L.A.'s longest-running restaurants might join the ranks. Owners of Chili John's, a Burbank institution since 1946, say they'll have to close or sell the restaurant if business doesn't increase. But a new, adjacent bar could help the legendary chili diner stay afloat. 'People will tell me, 'Oh, you guys can't go out of business because you've been here so long,' but it doesn't actually work that way,' said co-owner Steve Hager. 'It is a business and it needs to make money and sustain itself in order to stay. …You can't keep a restaurant open when people only come once every year.' According to Hager, who owns Chili John's with his wife, Claudine, the business never recovered from COVID losses; currently they're grossing only 20% of pre-pandemic sales. Guests have dined on the famous chili for decades at the diner's U-shaped counter, at times flocking to try the long-simmered stew or sample the lauded icebox pie — both of which were served at the first Chili John's (and original bar) in Green Bay, Wis., before making their way out west. 'We have amazing chili in my opinion,' Hager said, 'but people aren't coming in to buy amazing chili — at least not enough in order for us to stay.' That chili recipe was written down by founder John Isaac roughly 130 years ago, a spin on chuck-wagon meat preservation that he served at his Wisconsin bar and restaurant. In 1946 his son moved west and opened his own outpost in Burbank. Claudine Hager's uncle, Gene Loguercio, purchased the business in the '80s as a longtime family friend to the Isaacs. In 2016 she and her husband began helping Loguercio's widow and Claudine's cousins with the business, and around 2019 they formally took the reins. Today she and her husband grind beef suet in-house, clarify it for four to six hours, then add the meat and simmer for an additional 16 to 20 hours. The tart but creamy icebox pie, another signature, is the same as it was in 1900 when it was served in Isaac's Wisconsin bar. 'It is wonderful chili, dense and comforting, lean and hearty, with a cumin wallop and a subtle, smoky heat that creeps up on you like the first day of a Santa Ana wind,' Jonathan Gold wrote in 1991. 'It's the kind of stuff that stays with you for a while, flavoring your breath for half a day even if you don't pile on the onions.' From 2017 to 2019, Hager remembers a line of guests out the door and down the block, there to buy chili and sit at the restaurant's U-shaped counter. Now, he said, he's lucky if 10 people are filling the 25 swiveling orange stools along the horseshoe. On March 20 the Hagers launched a GoFundMe campaign, hoping to crowdsource finances to keep the historic restaurant afloat. They're also banking on the launch of the Taproom at Chili John's, an adjacent bar that's taken four years to open. But, he said, they might not have enough funds to last through the bar's opening. A Thursday Instagram post announcing the fundraiser elicited concern from fans and community members, including longtime supporter and comedian Patton Oswalt. 'The only thing that can tame the summer heat of Burbank are the harsh chilies and creamy pastas on hand at Chili John's,' Oswalt wrote in a message to The Times. 'Once that place goes, it's the apocalypse.' A 2021 appearance on reality show 'Restaurant Recovery' helped diversify the menu with burgers, specialty hot dogs, chicken sandwiches and fries, and began the bar's renovation next door. It also provided a bump in business due to the exposure, but those visits have come and gone. 'We're doing worse now than we did during COVID,' Hager said. Many L.A. restaurants trying to remain afloat from pandemic losses continued to struggle during the 2023 entertainment industry strikes. Many still have not recovered from the ripple effects of the strikes and the general downturn in local production. For a frequent filming location like Chili John's — which has appeared in 'Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,' 'Twin Peaks,' 'Star Trek' and 'I Am the Night,' among others — the drop in business proved devastating. For years, the restaurant served as a filming locale once or twice a month. Last year, it wasn't rented for filming at all. Hager said that the previous year it was rented for two commercials, which typically do not pay as much as a feature film or miniseries. He added that the restaurant's clientele primarily work in the entertainment industry at nearby studios; without a pickup in production, its client base nearly vanished. The restaurant might have already closed had it not been for Hager's disability pension from his years in the military. Last year he received a retroactive deposit for two years' worth of payments; without much income from the restaurant, the Hagers have been putting the pension money into paying staff and the restaurant's bills. Recently, they ran through their retroactive lump sum. Soon their property taxes will come due. There's not much more they feel they can do to sustain, and Hager told The Times he hasn't paid himself in years. 'Right now is basically when all my savings went to zero,' he said. They're hoping that the adjacent Taproom at Chili John's — which is currently soft opening on weekends and set to fully debut in April — could change their future and be more relevant for the neighborhood. Chili fans, fear not: Bowls of the signature beef chili will be available at the bar alongside the chicken chili and the organic lentil-and-quinoa versions — even in flight, or sampler, form — alongside the chili spaghetti, chili dog and chili burger. But the taproom also will serve new burrata salads, charcuterie boards, a salmon plate, a steak sandwich and gourmet s'mores, with dishes inspired by Hager's 15 years spent traveling in the Coast Guard through Sonoma County, New Orleans, New England and beyond. (A favorite of his, a beloved New Orleans peanut butter burger, also is planned to make an appearance.) Local craft beer, calimocho and wine — keeping glasses around $10 — also can be found at the taproom. 'We're excited, it's just that we don't know if we're even going to be able to [financially] last through the opening,' Hager said. 'We've been putting a lot of money out for equipment and the kegs of beer for our tap system, our cases of wine and the food. We have reached a point where we're almost completely out of money, and we're not going to be able to pay the property taxes or the mortgage.' The Hagers hope to not only maintain the cherished restaurant for history's sake but to keep the restaurant in the family. The restaurant is set to turn 80 next year. With renewed support from the community, they're hoping guests will be able to gather around that horseshoe counter for from-scratch chili made from a century-old recipe at Chili John's 80th birthday, and for years to come. 'Even if people don't want to give us donations for the GoFundMe, I was hoping that maybe that would just make people aware,' Hager said. 'The problem would fix itself if we can just have enough people come and enjoy our food.' Chili John's, 2018 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
