Original Pantry Cafe in downtown LA could shut down amid labor dispute

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Original Pantry Cafe in downtown Los Angeles is slated to close in early March in what employees are calling a union-busting move.

"It's disgusting. It doesn't show care or respect for the people of Los Angeles," Bridie Roberts, an organizer for Unite Here Local 11, said Wednesday at a workers rally.

The local favorite, once owned by former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, opened in 1924 and has been at Figueroa and 9th streets since 1950. But the restaurant's extraordinary run may come to an end.

When Riordan died in 2023, ownership of the restaurant shifted to the Richard J. Riordan Trust.

Officials for Unite Here Local 11, the union representing the workers, says the trust notified them that the Pantry is up for sale and will shut down unless the employees give up their union rights.

"The trust came back and said, 'If you keep insisting for the workers to have job security and to keep their union in case there's a change in hand, then we're going to close March 2 at 5 p.m.,'" said Maria Hernandez, a Unite Here Local 11 organizer. "It's just really sad and disgusting to see the trust act this way."

Eyewitness News was unable to reach any representatives for the Riordan Trust for comment.

The staff at the Pantry has already been scaled down. The union says the restaurant used to employ 85 people but is now down to just 23.

Servers like Marcella Granados, who has worked at the Pantry for more than 25 years, are now about a week and a half away from being unemployed. Granados says the people running the trust are ruining Riordan's legacy as a caring business owner.

"I served Mr. Riordan. He was a nice guy," Granados said. "I think if he had been here nothing like this would have happened."