On my way to Sunday’s CicLAvia cycling festival I stopped for breakfast. I had not been to the Original Pantry in years and years, but I figured that Eggslut in the Grand Central Market had probably become the breakfast-venue-of-choice for residents of downtown Los Angeles so there would not be a line outside the Original Pantry. Wrong.
The Original Pantry is famous for having been open 24 hours a day since 1924 with the exception of a brief period when it was updated back in the 1990s–I think–after Richard Riodan bought it.
When I first went there in the 1970s the daytime patrons were almost all Blue-Collar workers from the local area. Not many other eating establishments around there. At night it was the go-to place for young people who haunted the legal and not-so-legal clubs in what was then the mostly vacant fringes of downtown L.A.
Now it has become famous. And tourists as well as locals head to it for breakfast. Me among them. But the long line was disheartening because I was on my way to the Ciclavia and didn’t want to wait.
Then I noticed a sign near the entrance to the Pantry which read that Riordan’s Tavern right next door served the same food as The Pantry. Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan owns both The Original Pantry and Riordan’s so I suspected the sign was true. And it was. No waiting for me! Within minutes I had a substantial Belgium waffle, scrambled eggs and tepid coffee in front of me. This breakfast came right out of the kitchen located between the two places.
There is sports memorabilia all over the place in Riordan’s, but it is not strictly one of those sports bars with dozens of TVs mounted around the room. I suspect the items may be part of the former Mayor’s personal collection or perhaps donations/acquisitions from the nearby Staples Center. There was one TV and, surprisingly, Arsenal and Liverpool were playing rather than the Olympics.
The next post will be about this latest CicLAvia.
