The Last Louise's Trattoria Closes November 25, Ending a Chain That Trained a Generation of LA Chefs

Louise's Trattoria on Larchmont Boulevard will serve its last meal on Wednesday, November 25. The restaurant announced it on social media on November 6 with one line: "Our final day of service is November 25th, Grazie Mille."

It is the last Louise's. There were once nineteen.

What Is Closing

The restaurant sits at 232 North Larchmont Boulevard in Larchmont Village and has been there since 1988, which makes this location thirty-eight years old. It is still open and still keeping normal hours until the 25th, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days and until 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

The brand goes back further than the building. It traces to a Santa Monica pizzeria that opened in 1978, run by Louise and Jackie Berardis. In 1985, a roughly 25-year-old Bill Chait and two partners bought it from them, kept the name, and started building.

The Part Most Coverage Will Miss

Louise's was a chef incubator, and the list of people who passed through it is the reason this closure is worth more than a line in a closures roundup.

In 1994 the chain hired Mauro Vincenti as a consultant, and he recruited Italian chefs into most of the locations. The names that came out of that period went on to run some of the restaurants Angelenos now think of as institutions.

• Gino Angelini worked there briefly in 1995 before moving to Rex. He later opened Angelini Osteria.

• Nicola Mastronardi cooked there for about three years starting in 1994, then opened Vincenti Ristorante.

• Lucio Bedon started in the mid-1990s at the Pico location and later opened Vicini Ristorante & Wine Bar.

• Guy Fieri worked for the chain as a district manager.

• Bill Chait himself, who oversaw all of it, went on to open Bestia and République.

That is a single mid-priced Italian chain producing the people behind Angelini Osteria, Vincenti, Vicini, Bestia and République. Very few restaurant groups in this city can claim a run like that, and most of the ones that can are not remembered as chains.

How a Nineteen-Location Chain Became One

At its peak Louise's ran fifteen restaurants across Southern California and four more elsewhere in the country, reaching as far as Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. That East Coast push is what broke it.

The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in 1997 carrying roughly $12 million in unsecured debt. Chait has called the expansion the "fatal blow." He stepped back, his brother Jon bought the business out of bankruptcy for $7 million, and by 2000 the chain was down to thirteen locations. The contraction never really stopped.

Rob and Karen Serritella own what is left. Rob had been the chain's chief operating officer and then chief executive, and in 2018 he bought the two remaining Louise's along with two Holy Cow BBQ locations. "I still thought there was something there," he told the Los Angeles Times. He also said the thing that explains why a restaurant like this lasts as long as it does: "We literally have three generations of customers."

The Pico Boulevard location closed in May 2023. The Serritellas sold that site to Lucio Bedon, who opened Vicini there in August 2023. A chef the chain trained in the 1990s ended up taking over one of its rooms, which is either a nice piece of symmetry or a quiet indictment, depending on how you look at it.

The Wider Pattern

Louise's lands in a year Los Angeles has spent losing long-running rooms. We tracked the first half in the restaurants that closed this summer, and the West Hollywood cluster in five closures in a year on the Sunset corridor. Neither the Serritellas nor the announcement gave a reason for this one, which is also the pattern.

If You Go, Go Now

• Louise's Trattoria, 232 N Larchmont Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004, Larchmont Village

• Final day: Wednesday, November 25, 2026

• Hours until then: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday

• Phone: (323) 962-9510

For more LA restaurant news, and what is opening as these rooms close, see our guide to new restaurants in Los Angeles.

Sourcing

The November 25 closing date and the restaurant's announcement come from What Now Los Angeles, published November 6, 2026. The chain's history, including the 1978 Santa Monica pizzeria, the Berardis family, Bill Chait's 1985 purchase, the nineteen-location peak, the chefs who came through, the 1997 Chapter 11 filing and the $12 million in unsecured debt, the $7 million purchase by Jon Chait, the Serritellas' 2018 acquisition and all quotes from Chait and Rob Serritella, come from a Los Angeles Times report by Daniel Miller published September 21, 2023, read here in syndication. Because that reporting is from 2023, it describes the chain as it stood then. The Larchmont address, current hours and phone number were taken from the restaurant's Google Business Profile. No reason for the closure has been published. Food Journal Magazine has not spoken with the owners. Checked November 8, 2026.