This L.A. restaurant was excited to open. Then the graffiti and protests happened
Early in the morning on Wednesday, long before the doors first opened to Glassell Park’s newest restaurant, the Dunsmoor team arrived to bold red-and-white letters spray-painted across its windows.
“Gentrification Is Genocide,” it read in all caps and in both Spanish and English, each tag on one side of the corner building, according to the owners.
It was just the beginning. The day would culminate in a protest that saw handmade signs stating, “GENTRIFIERS ARE ON THE MENU TONIGHT!” pressed against the restaurant’s windows as patrons dined inside. Another neon sign bemoaned the restaurant’s prices: “F— YOUR $23 LENTILS!!!”
The new restaurant from former Hatchet Hall chef Brian Dunsmoor opened Wednesday night in a historically Latino neighborhood that has seen a rise in property values and demographic changes. Coupled with its proximity to Highland Park, Glassell Park is one of a number of Los Angeles-area neighborhoods central to the city’s ongoing discussion of gentrification and displacement.
“Last night we did close to 100 covers [served guests], and I touched every table,” restaurant partner Taylor Parsons told The Times on Thursday morning. “I would say that 50% were from the neighborhood, like walked here, and they were all really excited. Some of them got in verbal altercations with the protesters outside, going in or out, and some walked over when they saw the protest was happening.
