Mona Holmes is an editor at Eater Southern California/Southwest, a regular contributor at KCRW radio, and a 2022 James Beard Award nominee.
An East Los Angeles restaurant is now serving a breakfast menu dedicated to one of the city’s oldest restaurants. East Los Tacos not only serves a limited number of dishes from the Original Pantry, but has also hired four of its former employees who lost their jobs when the Pantry closed on March 2.
East Los Tacos owner Erika Armenta had a final meal at the 101-year-old restaurant before it closed and spoke with a longtime server. First reported by NBC-4, Armenta eventually hired four Pantry employees, some of whom worked there for 25 years. “One of our friends suggested hiring them as cooks at our restaurant, since we were short-staffed,” Armenta tells Eater. “This sparked an idea. I wanted to meet with them and offer a job that would allow them to pursue their true passion, cooking what they loved most: breakfast meals.”…