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The Wake & Late team is coming to Pasadena this year — and not just to sling breakfast burritos. Co-owner Ben Richter and company have taken over the massive 10,000 square foot ground floor location of the former Le Cordon Bleu school at 525 Colorado Boulevard, with plans to use the building as a storefront for food and coffee as well as a central hub to expand the food offerings across each retail location considerably. Starting late summer/early fall, Wake & Late’s newest location will grow to include the production of sourdough bagels, breads, and breakfast pastries that will be for sale at each Wake & Late location. By the end of the year, that will mean Downtown, Santa Monica, Hollywood, and Pasadena, with a few more storefront locations still to be signed, Richter says.
“When we first opened, we really wanted to bring fine and fast breakfast options everywhere,” Richter tells Eater, “but you can really only do so much with 900 square feet [in Downtown]. Once we started to grow, the question was ‘Is this it? Are we only going to serve food for people who eat breakfast burritos?’ We wanted to be more of an answer for everyone.” Soon that menu will grow to not only include in-the-LA-zeitgeist sourdough bagels, but also burekas, the flaky Israeli pastry. Expect an opening for Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Hollywood to come in the next five months or so.
The struggles are still real
Bar Business magazine is highlighting some of the (many) ongoing challenges to the cocktail and beverage industry. Ivan Vasquez of Madre, a rep for the Landsby Hotel in Solvang, and a bartender at nearby Nella Kitchen & Bar in Los Olivos are all quoted in the piece, which covers everything from inflation and public health and safety to worker and customer issues — and that’s just to start.
Leaning into the music
The LA Weekly takes a fun look at Alex Rodriguez, the LA native and self-professed music obsessive behind Record Safari in Los Feliz. Rodriguez helps to curate the vinyl collection for the on-site record store at Coachella, and also happens to be the DJ booker for small Los Feliz cocktail hotspot Pinky’s.
Neighborhood news
Mochi doughnut spot MoDo Hawaii has expanded to 1355 E. Huntington Drive in Duarte, keeping daily hours from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fiish opened earlier this month at the Platform development in Culver City, serving sustainable seafood options and takeout boxes. In the South Bay, Northern Cafe has expanded to take over at 700 S. Allied Way in El Segundo. The space has been a rotation of different dining options over the past several years, says Toddrickallen.
Silver Lake’s closed former Army surplus store on Sunset Boulevard is becoming a West Coast location for Neighborhood Goods, a sort of mini department store group that’s based out of Dallas. What’s more, the space will offer a rooftop Italian restaurant with a full cocktail lineup, says the Eastsider, though few other formal details about the upcoming spot named Sunny’s are as yet known.
Chinatown’s Aquarela coffee shop has expanded into the CalEdison building in Downtown, serving Brazilian coffee from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on workdays. The small but stunning space is at 601 W. 5th Street.
