In 2025 fires, ICE raids, neighborhood curfews and tariffs added to the strain on Los Angeles restaurants. “Usually, the San Francisco restaurant owners are very pessimistic,” Condie said, “and with L.A. restaurants, it’s usually the other way around. They’ve traded places, and I haven’t seen anything like this in our surveys in a while.”Of the L.A. restaurateurs surveyed, 84.8% said traffic is down compared with last year. (Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)L.A. restaurateurs warned Levy that operating in Los Angeles can be more costly and require more permitting than he’d experienced in New York City. “We might not see it the way it was again, but the restaurant business isn’t over, we can’t accept that.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 22, 2025 15:40 UTC