When news crashed-landed that The Original Pantry Cafe was closing forever , Angelenos wept, crying over the loss of a 101-year-old Downtown icon, for the long-serving employees losing their jobs, and facing the prospect of never tasting the restaurant’s famous silver-dollar pancakes and sourdough garlic bread ever again.
One woman, Erika Armenta, the owner of East Los Tacos , felt the pain and did something remarkable about it: She threw several staff members and Pantry fans alike a lifeline.
Over the last three weeks, Armenta has opened her Cesar Chavez Avenue taquería in the early hours of the day to transform it into East Los Pantry, which serves an abridged menu of OG Pantry breakfast classics, with former Pantry staffers employed in the kitchen to do the cooking.
“I was visiting the pantry house for one last meal, just like everybody else,” Armenta tells L.A. TACO. “Alex was our waiter, taking care of our order, and he was just really down that day. He was letting it out, talking to us, basically saying goodbyes to all of us who were visiting. And, you know, it really just stuck with me.”…