Los Angeles has apparently decided that everything needs an upgrade: The neighborhood coffee shop is now a coffee concept.
asserted
shop → decide → upgrade
The apartment building has become a residence.
asserted
building → become → ?
Somewhere along the way, a perfectly respectable cheeseburger acquired an aioli and became $24.
asserted
cheeseburger → acquire → aioli
I would like to opt out.
asserted
I → like → ?
Not of nice things; I enjoy nice things.
asserted
I → enjoy → things
I have an Oura Ring and recently wrote an entire column about my supplement collection.
asserted
I → have → collection
I am hardly storming the gates of Erewhon.
asserted
I → storm → Erewhon
I am, however, becoming increasingly protective of places that are just … places: The coffee shop with chairs designed for sitting rather than photographing.
asserted
that → become → chairs
The dive bar where nobody has considered adding adaptogens to the cocktails.
asserted
nobody → consider → cocktails
These places are becoming strangely luxurious precisely because they aren’t trying to be.
asserted
they → become → ?
We got a glimpse of just how much Angelenos care about them when plans emerged to turn the landmark Norms on La Cienega into a Raising Cane’s.
asserted
plans → get → Cane
The Googie building itself is protected as a historic monument, but the proposal would have replaced the affordable sit-down diner with the national chicken-finger chain when Norms’ lease ended.
asserted
lease → protect → chain
Angelenos revolted, and Raising Cane’s ultimately backed away from the plan after community outcry.
asserted
Cane → revolt → outcry
Apparently there are limits to what we will allow to become chicken fingers.
asserted
we → be → ?
Maybe that’s because preserving a building isn’t necessarily the same thing as preserving a place.
asserted
preserving → ’ → place
A restaurant isn’t beloved because of its roofline alone; it’s the people behind the counter — the regulars, the menu item you’ve been ordering since 2007, the fact that you can afford to go there often enough for someone to recognize you.
asserted
someone → ’ → you
That’s harder to landmark.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
Heart’s Coffee Shop in Lake Balboa closed last month after 47 years in business.
asserted
Shop → close → business
Owners Yuk and Sue Wong had run it since 1979, building the kind of family diner where customers returned for generations.
asserted
customers → run → generations
Their daughter told reporters that her parents had resisted raising menu prices for 13 years because they worried their regulars wouldn’t be able to keep coming.
asserted
regulars → tell → years
Eventually, rising costs and other economic pressures made the restaurant unsustainable.
asserted
restaurant → rise → ?
That’s the brutal contradiction: The affordability that makes these places valuable to a neighborhood can also make them increasingly difficult to keep alive.
asserted
them → ’ → neighborhood
Los Angeles does need to change: We need housing.
asserted
We → need → housing
Neighborhoods evolve.
asserted
Neighborhoods → evolve → ?
Restaurants close.
asserted
Restaurants → close → ?
New people arrive and build new things.
asserted
people → arrive → things
And sometimes an old place manages to evolve without disappearing.
asserted
place → manage → ?
After 64 years in Westchester, Dinah’s Family Restaurant was displaced by development but managed to relocate to Culver City, bringing its famous chicken-bucket sign and commitment to accessible food along with it.
asserted
Restaurant → displace → it
The goal isn’t to preserve Los Angeles in amber; it’s to make sure progress doesn’t sand away what made us care about a neighborhood in the first place.
asserted
us → preserve → place
Because, lately, every ordinary business seems one renovation away from emerging with pale wood, tiny plants and a menu containing the word “curated.”
asserted
business → seem → word
You know the transformation: One day your neighborhood coffee shop sells coffee — then butcher paper appears over the windows.
asserted
paper → know → windows
Six months later it reopens with limewash walls, a vaguely Scandinavian name and nowhere to plug in your laptop.
asserted
it → reopen → laptop
(But don’t worry, they have merch.)
asserted
they → worry → merch
When ordinary places become premium experiences, ordinary people gradually get priced out of ordinary life.
asserted
people → become → life
Maybe that’s why Angelenos become so fiercely loyal to the survivors: The diner with laminated menus.
asserted
Angelenos → ’ → menus
The family restaurant where nobody has redesigned the logo since 1997.
asserted
nobody → redesign → 1997
We recommend them almost apologetically.
asserted
We → recommend → them
“It’s nothing fancy.”
asserted
It → ’ → ?
Increasingly, that’s the selling point: Nothing fancy means I don’t need a reservation.
asserted
I → ’ → reservation
Nothing fancy means I can sit with a friend without feeling as though the table needs to achieve a certain revenue-per-square-foot target.
asserted
table → mean → target
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
