For decades, a strident place of restaurant and music throughout Fairfax Avenue has been the main destination for Angels looking for a sample of American Chinese cuisine. This spring, that restaurant will close, possibly to be demolished along with the rest of its shopping center, but its owners plan to save Genghis Cohen and its lasting legacy.
For now, red paper flashlights still hang on a dining room full of all areas of life. They have reached Nosh in egg rolls, the beef of “Kanton Knish”, orange and other specialties of the venerated Chinese restaurant in the style of New York. Live music bleeds through the walls of the adjacent action space. But on May 31, Genghis Cohen will close in 740 N. Fairfax Ave. Due to the lack of renegocia of the building lease and plans to rebuild Fairfax Plaza.
“Genghis's future as a whole will continue to be brilliant, because we will make sure he does,” said co -owner Marc Rose. “Our sleeves are rolling.”
The dining room with Lanterns by Genghis Cohen in its original location in 740 N. Fairfax Ave.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Rose and his commercial partner, Med Abrous, are planning a temporary relocation of the restaurant while looking for a more permanent home; The restorators, also behind the Revitalization of the Dolce Vita de Beverly Hills And the Hollywood Roosevelt's The free room – See the survival of Genghis Cohen as administration of a little of the history of the city's restaurant, and are optimistic about keeping it alive.
That does not mean that they have not lost sleep during movement.
A company called N Fairfax Holdings LLC bought the Strip Shopping Center approximately five years ago. Rose said the contractual negotiations for Genghis Cohen have lasted approximately three years, sometimes including months of silence of their lessor. In November, the owner company presented a commercial eviction against the LLC Parent of Genghis Cohen in the Superior Court of the Los Angeles County. The case is in the process of resolved, according to judicial documents.
The shopping center, once called Fairfax Plaza, previously included a radioshack, a dance dance and newspaper studio as well as Genghis Cohen; All companies beyond the restaurant have been demolished, with a new construction.
The representatives of N Fairfax Holdings LLC could not be contacted to comment. The property administrator, Jude Kim by Charles Dunn Real Estate Services, declined to comment on the future of the building.
What existed as the restaurant shopping center, on the left, is now under construction.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
“Genghis Cohen, in that timeline, was not in the plans for the reurbing of property, now it has made us clear,” Abrous said. “As the negotiations progressed, it was clear that not only we were not going to be able to negotiate a rental number that would work within our business model, but that the real physical comforts of the building would be reduced.”
The parking lot of their restaurant, they said, would no longer have been available for guests under the new lease terms.
In Tumultuous landscape That has seen hundreds of angels Restaurants close in it Last two yearsThe owners said they could not know in an agreement that could put Genghis Cohen in a position to fail; A considerable rental increase, along with the elimination of comforts such as parking, prompted them to look elsewhere.
“We have been working in the queue to find a solution, and I think we find the best possible solution for a really horrible situation that they put us,” Rose said, adding: “I think people are becoming insensitive because they are happening so frequently, where people cannot survive or are closing. We are dead, hell, not doing that. We love this place, we love what we do, and nothing goes up to that.” “
Abrous and Rose bought the restaurant in 2015, the third change of property in their history. The music publicist Alan Rinde founded Genghis Cohen in 1983 as a means to serve Chinese cuisine in New York style, it is rarely located on the west coast at that time. Later he added the music room, which became integral to his identity, and organized acts held as Jackson Browne, Beck, Dave Grohl, Bonnie Raitt and Tom Morello, among others. In 1997, he yields He sold the business to the long time server Raymond Kiu.
Orange peel beef in Genghis Cohen.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Almost 20 years later, Rose and Abrou were approached by a real estate agent to take care of the space, but not to continue Genghis Cohen.
“I don't think they realized that they were reaching two guys who loved this style of food, who loved the idea of Genghis Cohen and love the history of Los Angeles,” Rose said. “We had to almost convince the [Kiu] Family that we were going to carry the torch and how much Genghis Cohen meant and what we thought could be. We really saw much more than a single restaurant in Fairfax. “
In their mandate, they have seen that the dining tables were filled with families, young skaters and sneakers that go north from the street clothing stores along Fairfax, young types of Hollywood, musicians of all ages and major generations of the original restaurant fans.
Over the years, the dining room has updated, reconfiguring the seats and adding a blue brightness fish near the entrance. They have renewed the bathrooms, renewed the cocktail program, reviewed the supply of ingredients for the food menu and approached live programming with renewed heat.
A paper dragon hangs on Genghis Cohen's dining room in its original location in 740 N. Fairfax Ave.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
“I think it's bittersweet,” Abrus said. “On the one hand, I think we never imagine it in motion. But I think the evolution is inevitable, and what was once unimaginable is becoming something that can be very positive. We see this as an opportunity to make it better.”
May 31 will be the last day of service in the original location, and Rose and Abraus want the transition to be as perfect as possible.
They will move south along Fairfax and temporarily assume the old Sweet chick space, which is surrounded by Jon & Vinny's, Canter's, Badmaash, Prime Pizza and Cofax Coffee.
The delivery will begin from the new temporary advance on June 1, with a dinner service to follow in the following weeks; He echoes his purchase of Genghis Cohen in 2015, when they never lost a day of service that took over the business.
When Geghis Cohen reopens in their temporal location, guests can find different touches and new colors, a tandem space for the original, in no way a recreation of the iconic 740 N dining room. Fairfax Ave. The iconic three -piece neon signs can wait in storage.
The Krispy Kanton Knish, a curd of fried beans full of chicken, shrimp and vegetables (above) and pork rolls in the style of New York style.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
While the dining room seats are comparable, the bar is much larger, doubling the stools, which rise and abound as an opportunity to expand cocktails. The food, they said, will continue to be the same and possibly include some new items.
“There is such energy and an environment in that [original] Room, “Rose said.” We do not plan to make an exact reflected image because that would not feel good. How could we do that?
What is remarkably lacking in the temporal space is a scenario: something that restaurant owners feel that it is a necessary component in the future permanent location of Genghis Cohen. Meanwhile, while looking for that house, they hope to promote shows “under the nickname of Genghis Cohen” elsewhere.
That does not mean that shows will stop in advance of the movement. Both owners say they hope to fill the stage with even more performances, and a new programming and special both in the dining room and in the music room.
“We are not going to be silent,” Rose said. “We will have a lot of fun there for the next two months, because we do not want this to be a funeral. We will celebrate everything that 740 N. Fairfax has brought us these years, with the intention of welcoming everything new that will come.”
