The Pacific Dining Car restaurant building, a historical-cultural monument where the city's most influential personalities once dined, was Severely damaged in a fire on Saturday.
Seventy-five firefighters responded to a blaze that broke out shortly after midnight outside the century-old restaurant and spread to the building, according to Los Angeles Fire Department officials. The fire took about an hour to extinguish.
A tent, mattresses and charred shopping carts could be seen on the north side of the restaurant building, which is located in Los Angeles' Westlake neighborhood and is currently vacant. The cause of the incident is still under investigation, LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said.
Humphrey said it was not immediately clear where the fire originated, but firefighters believe it started as a debris or trash fire.
“We’ve had calls from a lot of people today. They’re pretty heartbroken. I think a lot of people have relatives who have been there at some point,” he said.
A fire damaged the historic Pacific Dining Car restaurant building on Saturday.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Pacific Dining Car closed for good in 2020, several months into the COVID-19 pandemic. With its stained glass windows, dark wood interiors and high-backed chairs, the restaurant had been a 24-hour fine-dining spot for politicians, business leaders, entertainment industry figures and anyone looking to celebrate a special occasion.
“It was the place where the powerful people of Los Angeles came to stay,” said Adrian Scott Fine, president of the Los Angeles Conservancy, an organization dedicated to historic preservation.
Fine said Pacific Dining Car was a “traditional business” on the level of Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood or Dan Tana's in West Hollywood, serving steaks and other sumptuous dishes (think iceberg lettuce with candied bacon) into the evening.
Last year, the City Council designated a portion of the site as a historic-cultural monument — the section “designed to resemble a railroad dining car,” according to the city’s report on the monument application.
According to the report, the establishment opened in 1921 at the corner of 7th and Westlake Streets and moved to its current location at the corner of 6th and Witmer Streets in 1923. The restaurant was expanded several times over the following decades.
A video of Saturday's fire, posted on Platform X, showed flames burning through the roof of the railcar section.
The property currently has a for sale sign outside. In recent years, members of the owner's family have been at odds over the future of the site, according to Eater LA.
A firefighter climbs down an aerial ladder after working on the roof of the burned Pacific Dining Car building on 6th Street.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Over the past century, the Pacific Dining Car has been popular with celebrities including Mae West and gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and has also served as a backdrop in films, according to the restaurant's website.
Mike Hernandez, a former Los Angeles City Councilman who represented the area from 1991 to 2001, said he knew nothing about Pacific Dining Car before entering politics, but once he ran for office, he went there regularly to meet with potential supporters.
During the restaurant's final years, long after he left office, Hernandez and his family celebrated New Year's Eve dinner at the restaurant several times.
“Pacific Dining Car was the place to go if you wanted to be seen and you wanted to see people,” he said.
