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- “I said to myself, ‘You’ll probably be all right.’ ... This is America.”
- “What us Pasadenans and Altadenans are about is doing what we need to do for one another.”
- “We’re not going anywhere.”
Unable to sleep around 2 a.m. last Wednesday, Sean St. John got out of bed and drove from his Pasadena home to check on his Altadena pizzeria, Pizza of Venice. He’d just been at the restaurant around 9 p.m., when the Eaton Canyon flames were visible on the mountain but still seemed a fair distance away.
“I hike these mountains a lot so I kind of know,” said St. John, a co-owner. “I said to myself, ‘You’ll probably be all right.’ ”
When he reached the restaurant in those early hours, he was so confident it would be safe from the fires that he took a lemonade and brownie on his way out. But none of the art on the walls, St. John said.
“I thought about it and I was like, ‘That fire is never getting here. They’re never gonna let all of Altadena burn down.’ ”
Pizza of Venice co-owner Sean St. John visits his Altadena pizzeria to assess the damage from the Eaton fire. Nothing is left of the restaurant but the street-facing pizzeria sign. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
On Saturday morning, St. John returned to the site of the Fair Oaks Avenue pizzeria, its street-facing sign serving as its only identification among fallen string lights, exposed brick pillars and piles of charred rubble. A lingering scent of smoke clung to the air and snowflakes of ash fluttered down from the sky.
St. John rummaged with his bare hands through broken beams and burnt kitchen appliances, hopeful that he’d be able to salvage something to remember the pizzeria as it once was. He found nothing.
He compared the sensation of witnessing the destruction of Altadena to when he heard about a close friend being shot and killed, and not believing it until seeing the body himself.
“I felt that same way about this, you know. I had to come and see. And I still can’t believe it.”
The loss of Pizza of Venice to the Eaton fire is one tile in a new, shattered mosaic: A topography of Black-owned homes and businesses with a reach that extends far beyond Altadena’s hillside community to represent a core pillar in the geography of Black L.A.
Many Black Angelenos in other cities or neighborhoods have personal connections to the unincorporated mountain town, from visiting grandmothers or cousins, or spending childhoods there. In the hours and days since the start of the fire, Black Angelenos immediately came together to organize for Altadena, activating mutual aid networks.
St. John opened Pizza of Venice with Jamie Woolner in 2013, cooking pizza out of a convection oven with just two tables and six chairs. Over the years, the pair doubled the seating, bought a pizza oven, obtained a beer and wine license and began making dough and curing meats in-house. He estimates that last month was their most profitable to date.
“We had a wide, diverse customer base because we’re in the middle of Altadena,” St. John said. “And all of the locals here embraced us.”
The shock of what has just occurred, not just to him but the entire Altadena community, had still not fully settled in for him.
“Normally, I’m the kind of person where if an emergency happens, I know what to do. If you have a heart attack, an aneurysm, if someone gets shot or if the earth starts to shake — most things, I know what to do. But this particular situation, I’ve never had something like this happen.”
As the Eaton fire raged in the middle of the night, St. John drove around the neighborhood, noting which streets were blocked off. The distance from the blockades at New York Drive and Allen Avenue to his restaurant was more than 2 and a half miles.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way this fire burns from there to Pizza of Venice,” St. John said. “It’s impossible. We’re in America.”
Born and raised in Barbados until he was 16, he says he could imagine how a fire could devastate the island, given its limited resources. “Here it just seemed so unfathomable to me.”
As Black Americans from the South headed west during the Great Migration, many settled in Altadena. Redlining was common practice back then, but as urban development led to new freeway construction, combined with momentous events such as the civil rights movement and Watts uprising, more white residents left the area, and west Altadena in particular.
As Los Angeles communities were forced to integrate, Black residents often faced intimidation or outright violence when moving into predominantly white neighborhoods. But Altadena took a different approach.
A 1977 Times article describes how, to encourage peaceful integration, a multiracial coalition called the Altadena Neighbors was formed. The group took measures to educate neighbors when residents of different racial backgrounds moved in. The community eventually came to pride itself on its diversity as the town’s demographics shifted. In 1960, Black residents represented just 4% of the local population. By 1970, the Black population had expanded to 27%. By 1980, the Black population in Altadena grew to represent 43% of all residents.
Many of those early Black migrants purchased homes and went on to open businesses in Altadena: Rose Bud Academy Charter School, Two Dragons Martial Arts, Arnold Funeral Services, Altadena Beauty Supply, UEDF Fish and Chips. One of them, the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, was in its third generation of family ownership. The soul food cafe — like many others — was completely destroyed by the Eaton fire.
Originally opened by owner Barbara Shay’s mother, Rena Shay, in 1972, the restaurant was passed down to her brother Lonzia Shay when their mother died in 2010. Barbara, a real estate broker, purchased the restaurant a decade ago. Barbara’s daughter Annisa Shay-Faquir and her grandchildren also worked in the restaurant.
“My mom used to open up at 5 a.m. and back in the day, it was the only African American restaurant open at that time,” Barbara said. “Redd Foxx would frequent there quite a bit and we have a big picture — well, had a picture — of him on the wall. Richard Pryor, too. They would leave the club and come to the shop.”
“It was a family affair,” Barbara said. “And everyone loved the food because everything was homemade with love.”
Barbara updated the menu when she took over, swapping corn and canola for vegetable oil, trading packaged sausage for a scratch-made version, flying in catfish from New Orleans every other week and adding ingredients such as garlic and turmeric to create a healthier menu.
During the pandemic, she added sidewalk seating with tables and umbrellas. “We were able to hold 50 people at a time, plus the to-go business.”
And though Barbara describes running a restaurant as “endless work,” her family found purpose and joy in operating the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop in Altadena for all of those years.
“You know when you serve a nice plate like Mama made it?” Barbara said. “People just can’t take it, they love it. I’m just a sucker to cook for people.”
The Little Red Hen Coffee Shop is unrecognizable now, its charred remains heaped below the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Mariposa Street. A GoFundMe has been launched to support the restaurant and Barbara said that she’s looking into launching a pop-up or finding a temporary location where the cafe can operate.
“We definitely want to rebuild,” she said.
The extent of damage across Altadena won’t be fully quantified for some time, but hundreds of families have been evacuated, and thousands of homes, businesses and other structures have been damaged or destroyed by the Eaton fire. Many, like the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, were multigenerational.
Altadena’s Black community has shrunk in recent decades — representing 18% in the 2020 census — but its influence is deeply embedded. And Black L.A. is stepping up to preserve not just the region’s Black history, but its Black future as well.
On the Saturday after the firestorm, mutual aid efforts were well underway.
In front of Pasadena’s First AME Zion Church, the parking lot had been converted into a resource center with donations that seemed to consider every possible circumstance an evacuee might find themselves in. Of course there were blankets, water bottles, clothing, masks and hygiene products, but also grab-and-go salads, squeezable snacks for kids, candy, crates of fresh vegetables, protein and grain bars, even honey-baked hams and queen-sized mattresses.
Volunteers waved down cars and loaded them up with essentials. Kelli King, an Altadena local and one of the event organizers, said it was their third donation drive in as many days.
“We ended up stopping at our old high school, John Muir High School, and we posted in that parking lot. And the power of social media just took it and ran with it.”
The grandmother of one of King’s high school friend’s attends First AME Zion Church and helped them secure the use of the parking lot as long as they have donations to give.
Known to his 373,000 Instagram followers as @WattsHomieQuan, TyQuan Givens paced between the street and the parking lot, directing the Fatburger food truck where to park and leaning into car windows to offer a smile to evacuees and assess their current needs.
“Quan, in his popularity, has gotten the food trucks out to assist us,” said King, “but it’s all a collaborative effort.”
Despite the circumstances, the mood was uplifting. A hidden speaker blared soul and R&B hits, and like Givens, every volunteer seemed ready with a smile. Bursts of laughter rose above Smoky Robinson’s smooth falsetto, a siren song of resilience.
“When [Givens] called me, I was like, ‘I’ll be out there tomorrow,’” said Craig Batiste, chef-owner of Mr. Fries Man, who lives in Gardena. For him, heading to Pasadena to provide aid was the obvious choice.
“I got family and friends out here,” he said.
In four large serving trays, Batiste had chicken wings coated in buffalo, lemon pepper, honey lemon Cajun and buffalo lemon pepper sauces ready to give out.
“I was thinking, let me do something quick that won’t go bad or get cold,” he said.
Set up to one side of Batiste was Wanna Smash Burger, a smashburger spot from Sylmar, with a flat top and fryer. On the other side was the Fatburger food truck preparing to distribute 500 free burgers, part of an initiative to give away 10,000 burgers in the Los Angeles area to evacuees and first responders.
“If it was us, they would’ve came down and done the same thing,” said Cory “Knotch” Marks, a volunteer who hails from the Crenshaw district.
At a Pasadena donation drive, Altadena evacuees La Toya Andrews and Nancy Ferdinand hug and comfort each other. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) Volunteers at the Pasadena donation drive greeted evacuees with a smile, and often, a hug. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Many of the volunteers on-site that day were evacuees themselves.
When Nancy Ferdinand confirmed that her Altadena home was still standing, she felt compelled to come out and support community members who weren’t so lucky. As someone who has lived in Altadena for 20 years and was raised in Pasadena, Ferdinand felt doubly affected by the fires.
“What us Pasadenans and Altadenans are about is coming together and doing what we need to do for one another,” she said.
Activated like muscle memory
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Trevon “Trey” Sailor of Sailor’s Coffee, an online-only, single-origin coffee company founded in Pasadena in 2017. Altadena has been his family’s hometown for five generations and though much remains unknown, he said they are committed to staying and helping their hometown recover from the fires.
“Altadena is a special place,” he said. “You’re nestled here right by the mountains, every house is different. There’s a mixture of cultures, it’s a tight-knit community.”
The impulse to help during disaster or tragedy — to fill in the cracks that underserved groups often fall through when it comes to distribution of aid — is activated like muscle memory within the broader L.A. Black community.
Natural and man-made disasters have devastated Black communities in places like New Orleans and Tulsa, Okla. Decades or even a century later, historic Black neighborhoods still struggle to return to their former glory, and survivors struggle to get the support they deserve.
On Sunday, Sailor partnered with another Black-owned business in Pasadena, Perry’s Joint, on a complimentary continental breakfast, a service they plan to continue every Sunday until further notice.
“It was a simple breakfast, but it was very powerful,” Sailor said. “People were able to see some of their neighbors and community members and able to just express how they were feeling or even just sit in silence.”
On Monday, Sailor provided free coffee to evacuees seeking free insurance consultations at Kibodeaux Insurance Agency.
“I understand how things could play out if you allow big developers to come in,” Sailor said. “I’m trying to counteract that. I want to keep it independent. I would hate for this to just turn into another place that has a bunch of HOAs [home owners associations].”
That means making sure people have all of the education they need as they tackle insurance claims, negotiate offers from real estate developers on their land or work with contractors to rebuild.
“We’re just trying to fill the gaps,” he said.
At New Revelation Missionary Baptist Church in Pasadena, senior pastor George Hurtt estimates that 80% to 90% of his congregation lives in Altadena. The church partnered with the L.A. Urban League to launch a resource drive with three hot meals served by different Black-owned restaurants throughout the day.
“People lost their homes but not their dignity,” Hurtt said. “We want to be able to give people financial resources to do whatever they want, even if it means spending on something to help their morale, to improve their mental health.”
“I don’t want us to all forget about one another.”
— Sean St. John, co-owner to Pizza of Venice, distributing final checks to employees
This week, Inglewood-based soul institution the Serving Spoon is offering breakfast at the church from 9 to 11 a.m., including its famous homestyle potatoes, eggs, chicken or pork sausage and biscuits.
Helmed by Greg Dulan of Dulan’s on Crenshaw and Kim Prince of now-shuttered Hotville Chicken, the Dulanville food truck is handling the church’s lunch service from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“I know the depths of despair as someone who, as a child, lost their home in a fire and was displaced,” Dulan said. “Those flashbacks came back to me and I know they’re going through a lot. I wanted to give them a sense of comfort, a sense of home as best as I could, and I thought that food would be the answer.”
Dulan remembers the long drives from South L.A. to visit his uncle Floyd in Altadena when he was a child. He said it was the area’s rich Black history that encouraged Prince and him to focus on providing direct support specifically in Pasadena and Altadena.
After lunch service, Dulanville has partnered with José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen organization to provide 500 additional meals in Pasadena this week, at locations that rotate each evening.
“I have a lot of customers that live out here,” Dulan said. “At least 10 times I heard, ‘You need to open a Dulan’s out here!’ Now I might do it. I’m giving it some thought.”
On Monday afternoon, Sean St. John gathered the employees of Pizza of Venice at the Pasadena Robinson Memorial across from City Hall. The purpose of the meeting was to distribute final checks.
No one knows when Pizza of Venice will serve slices again.
The displaced restaurateur stood between 10-foot-tall busts of Jackie and Mack Robinson, who spent their youth in Pasadena before Jackie went on to join the Brooklyn Dodgers and Mack competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. St. John tried to empower his staff to determine the future of Pizza of Venice, throwing out ideas around catering, a food truck, pop-ups or smoking meats in the parking lot of the former restaurant, which they used to do on weekends.
“I don’t want us to all forget about one another,” he said. “I love all you guys, and I got your back.”
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