The Original Pantry Reopens Nov. 19, and Its Fans Want Nothing Changed

Hope the Mission's new menu puts poblanos in the Denver omelet and scratch pancakes on the griddle, and every dollar of profit goes to shelters.

Near the end of its first run, the Original Pantry Cafe was making its beloved pancakes from a mix, the Los Angeles Times reported. When the downtown diner at Ninth and Figueroa streets reopens Nov. 19, the pancakes will be made from scratch and cost $16 a stack, LAist reported Wednesday. It's one small change, and it holds the whole argument over the new Pantry.

The Pantry had been open since 1924. In March 2025 it shut its doors, with its workers in a contract fight and the trust holding the property set on selling. Developer Leo Pustilnikov bought the building that September. The operator now is Hope the Mission, a San Fernando Valley nonprofit that serves unhoused Angelenos, and the diner's profits, all of them, are earmarked for its shelters.

That gives the menu a job bigger than nostalgia. "Tastes have changed, and this needs to be successful," Hope the Mission president Rowan Vansleve told LAist. By his count, the nonprofit's 35 shelters hold about 3,500 people each night.

So the Denver omelet now has poblanos where the bell peppers were. Donors who chipped in for the reopening got sandwiches with their names on them: the Betty Burger, and Grant's Sky High Deli, a half-pound corned beef sandwich with Gruyère and horseradish slaw.

It could have gone a lot further. Executive chef Daniel Hur and Jason Moniz, who oversees cooking across Hope the Mission's kitchens, first drew up a menu that wandered far from diner food toward global flavors. Then they pulled it back toward the familiar, the Times reported. The riskier ideas now live on the chalkboard of specials.

Plenty stays put: the coleslaw, the caged cash register by the front door and the sourdough toast. The bread still comes from Frisco Baking Co., which supplied the Pantry for decades. Many of the people are coming back too. Thirteen of the 21 workers on staff when it closed are returning under a new UNITE HERE Local 11 contract, a union representative told the Times.

That hasn't calmed the purists. Once the new menu went up online, people crowded the Pantry's Instagram and Reddit to beg it to leave everything alone, LAist reported. Hur grew up in Culver City, and he told LAist he understands. He even named his own untouchable: "If someone came in there and changed the Tito's Taco, I'd be like, 'Why?'" Moniz told the Times he expects some pushback but thinks diners want scratch cooking now. "The nostalgia goes so far," he said.

Some of the other changes are practical. The Pantry now takes cards, and the classic breakfast platter is $21. Vansleve told LAist the team priced the menu just under nearby competitors. The diner at 877 S. Figueroa St. holds a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting on opening day. After that it's open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. That's not around the clock, but according to the Times, the 24-hour schedule ended before the closure.

Vansleve wants it back. He told LAist the Pantry isn't truly back until it's open 24 hours, and he said what that will take: "We need to see those lines around the corner like they used to be."

Source: LAist, retrieved November 12, 2026. Other sources: yahoo.com.