LOS ANGELES
DOWNTOWN
NEWS Urban Scrawl on on a big bike ride.
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Courthouse plans advance, a chef’s big prize, and other happenings Around Town.
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Changes are coming for Main Street’s long-troubled Cecil Hotel.
W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
April 9, 2012
Volume 41, Number 15
INSIDE
CicLAvia Returns!
The Search For the Perfect Sandwich Mario Del Pero Aims to Innovate the Humble Meal at Mendocino Farms and His New Spot, Blue Cow
Finishing a 10,000-page EIR.
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No beer, lots of tears.
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photo by Gary Leonard
Mario Del Pero and Ellen Chen, the husband-and-wife founders of Blue Cow, a Bunker Hill restaurant that aims to reinvent the sandwich. by Jon RegaRdie
will quit, when a delivery truck won’t arrive, or when a customer will return a perfectly prepared entrée because it is not to his or her liking. If things go perfectly, your kitchen will reach a relative level of stability and you will develop a loyal clientele. You will survive the unsettling two-year period after opening and eventually become profitable. That’s roughly the experience that Mario Del Pero and his wife and business partner Ellen Chen had with Casa, a Mexican restaurant on Bunker
Hill. They opened the establishment in early 2009 and, despite a revolving door of executive chefs, reached the point in which the business was making money. Customers were happy and returned frequently. Life was easy, or as easy as it gets in the restaurant industry. There was only one problem. Del Pero, who is best known in Downtown Los Angeles for launching the upscale sandwich mini-chain Mendocino see Restaurants, page 8
All the latest Health news.
executive editoR
Remembering a former governor.
Almost Everything Is Coming Up Roses
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I
t takes a certain level of masochism to choose a career as a restaurant entrepreneur. If you have kids, you may only see them in glimpses. Your investors will want a return on their money, and will care little about the ego of your talented but mercurial chef. Your sleep patterns and sense of calm will be shattered by the unpredictable snafus that arise — there is no telling when a hostess
Community Awards Praise Downtown Projects and Scold a Skid Row Judicial Ruling by RichaRd guzmán city editoR
Five great entertainment options.
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15 CALENDAR LISTINGS 17 CLASSIFIEDS
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he sweet smell of roses and the sour taste of defeat met in Downtown last week. The occasion was the 32nd annual Roses and Lemon Awards, which honors a handful of local projects and goodheartedly shames one part of the community that needs improvement. The highlight in the event presented by the Downtown Breakfast Club comes at the end, with the presentation of the Lemon. This year the Lemonizers, DBC board members Hal Bastian and Jim White, displayed a series of images of Skid Row, with people camped out on the streets and their possessions scattered on sidewalks. Normally, the reveal of the Lemon draws
good-natured jeers and even some laughs. During the event on Thursday, April 5, the presentation of the award to what was labeled the “Skid Row Tragedy” produced mostly silence from the crowd of about 400 people at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom. Patrick Spillane, president of the DBC, a group comprised of a few dozen Downtown business leaders, said the Lemon was in response to U.S. District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez’s June ruling that prohibits police and other city officials from removing apparently abandoned items from the streets of Skid Row. The decision, in response to a lawsuit filed by eight homeless individuals organized by the Los Angeles Community Action see Roses, page 10
The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles
photo by Gary Leonard
Boris Mayzels and Casey Irvine were given a Rose prize for Seventh Street’s Silo Vodka Bar. The 32nd annual Roses and Lemon awards were handed out last week by the Downtown Breakfast Club.