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West Hollywood Lost Five Restaurants in a Year, and One Owner Finally Said Why

Sep 26
2 min read


More than ninety combined years of operation, gone from a few blocks, inside twelve months.


Individually, each of these reads as a restaurant closing. Together they read as something else. Over roughly the past year, West Hollywood and the Sunset corridor have lost five established rooms, and the reasons operators give keep converging on the same three things.


The list


  • Connie and Ted's, July 2026, 13 years. Michael Cimarusti's seafood restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard, from the chef behind three-Michelin-starred Providence.

  • Las Perlas, May 2026. The mezcal bar, closed on rising cost grounds.

  • The Belmont, August 31, 2026, 26 years. The La Cienega neighborhood bar and restaurant.

  • Electric Owl, September 2026, nearly 10 years. Ernesto Uchimura's railway-themed room on Gardner Street, on the site of a genuine Pacific Electric junction.

  • The PUMP brand, August 2026. Signage removed from the TomTom building, four years after the original location closed over an $80,000 monthly rent.


One owner put his name to it


Most closure announcements this year gave no reason at all. Dylan Leong, who ran The Belmont for 26 years, did. He said rising taxes, labor costs and a general lack of support from the city drove the decision, and added that this is unfortunately sort of the temperature of the Los Angeles bar and restaurant scene.


Vanderpump and Todd were similarly direct in 2023, saying that after running more than 37 establishments, a rent at that level was untenable. Cimarusti pointed to rising labor and supply costs. Three operators, three different segments of the market, three versions of the same arithmetic.


The numbers underneath


RestaurantData estimates 391 restaurant locations closed in California during the first half of 2026 alone, part of roughly 8,171 estimated closures across the United States and Canada in the same period.


As Parriva has noted, a closure count is not a failure rate. It records how many locations shut, not the odds that any given restaurant fails, and not why. Los Angeles is losing longtime restaurants and gaining new ones at the same time. Eater's September coverage lists another wave of openings underway in Silver Lake, Exposition Park, Culver City, the Sunset Strip and Pacific Palisades.


That is the honest version. Not a death spiral, but a churn that is falling hardest on restaurants with long leases, large footprints and payrolls built for a different era of nightlife.


What it costs a neighborhood


The thing a closure count misses is what those rooms did. The Belmont was where people watched the Kings win the Stanley Cup and sang at Sunday karaoke for two decades. Electric Owl sat on a corner where Red Cars turned off Sunset for forty-five years. Connie and Ted's was named for a chef's grandparents. Those are not interchangeable with whatever opens next, even if something good does.



FJM tracks Los Angeles closures as they are confirmed. If you know of one we have missed, we would like to hear about it.


Follow along with more LA restaurant news, see what else has opened in our guide to new restaurants in Los Angeles, or browse our picks for the best food in Los Angeles.

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