Tag Archive for: closed businesses

Livin’ La Pizza Loca no more

When we first moved to Echo Park, the only restaurant that would deliver to our sketchy apartment complex was La Pizza Loca. We were a little loca to eat the barely digestible pizza, but was at one point the cheapest meal in town.

This weekend the Glendale Boulevard pizzeria at Berkeley Avenue closed its doors for good – the sign is gone, and some window graphics remain, but a call to the old number and you’ll be redirected to another location.

It’s not the first place to close down in the strip mall – there was once a Cash Express storefront, a flower/bike/tobacco kiosk, and a Dog Grooming business. It might be a sign that the storefronts are being squeezed out as the strip mall prepares for a 7-11 to open up, which was approved last October by the neighborhood council and is undergoing review by the city for a beer and wine license.

The 7-11 plans include making improvements to the whole strip mall (cleaning up the parking lot, removing the old, ugly wall, improving signage), and thus the strip mall owner may be able to ask for higher rent. We’ll see if the Tacos Mexico and the other remaining tenants can stick it out, or if we’re looking at a high-end makeover on Glendale Boulevard and Berkeley.

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RIP our favorite Echo Park laundromat

About a month ago, we return from the honeymoon to the real world – lots of laundry and an empty refrigerator. Now, you might be a fan of Lucy’s – tempting you with Starbucks and Subway sandwiches and all. But we have a different routine along Sunset Boulevard. Sandwiched between Stories Books and Out of the Closet is (rather, was) a reliable 24-hour place to do the laundry. Better yet, its proximity to some of our favorite bars and restaurants gave us the excuse to have dinner and a beer or two at Masa while the our delicates spun in the washer.

But this time we arrive to a shuttered laundromat, and seeing the vending machines had been removed and mail piling up near the front door, we had a feeling it was for the long run.

Now, a month later, the favorite laundromat is still closed and collecting dust. No word on why it closed or what’s going to happen with the empty space, and our routine will have to change a little bit.

It’s not that there aren’t enough laundromats in Echo Park, but we’ll miss the routine of grabbing a beer in between loads. Perhaps someone should take over the space and turn it into a combined bar and laundromat (Like the ones they have in San Fran?)? The hipsters would LOVE it.

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