Restaurants Los Angeles

A Koreatown labor advocacy group released a survey Wednesday, alleging that neighborhood restaurant owners routinely violate minimum-wage laws and other legal safeguards for the approximately 2,000 workers who prepare food, serve, wash dishes and clean at hundreds of eating establishments.

A few San Fernando Valley entrepreneurs are banking that they can make a living selling soul food in a region without a whole lot of African American souls. In places such as Woodland Hills, Sherman Oaks and Encino, where the black population is less than 3%, restaurants serving soul food are trying to do what the Italians and Chinese have done for years--offer their specialized fare to the hungry masses, regardless of race. So far, the results are mixed.

Girl reporter goes into the belly of the beast--into the Democratic convention not to report on the pressing political issues of our time but to, gulp, investigate what's going on food-wise. Would it be a gourmet event or strictly proletarian? Caviar or hot dogs? Swathed in press passes to get me past the various levels of security, I felt a little like Joan Rivers outside the Academy Awards waylaying stars to ask them about their gowns. Food? You want to ask me about the food?

In a case held up by their attorneys as emblematic of pervasive exploitation in the service industry, eight former employees of a Koreatown restaurant filed a lawsuit Wednesday, alleging they had been subjected to long hours and poor working conditions while earning sub-minimum wages. Lawyers for the plaintiffs stressed that the complaint is not unique but rather just one instance of the widespread mistreatment of low-wage immigrant service workers.

This was personal. Or so it seemed for the dozens of protesters and devotees who rallied around tiny Jay's Jayburgers Saturday, a 44-year-old icon of Southern California's roadside past scheduled to be demolished this week. "You don't find many little stands like this around Los Angeles anymore," said architect Scott Fajack, a Jay's double-burger-with-chili fan for 11 years. "It's just a loss of another institution."

Struggling restaurant chain Planet Hollywood International Inc. said Thursday it will close its high-profile Beverly Hills restaurant in February as it sheds poorly performing outlets in an effort to emerge from bankruptcy as a profitable company.

So you think Southern California is laid-back? When the very Gallic Michele Lamy moved to Los Angeles, she quickly discovered just how carefree the city really is. "The first week I was here, I got two tickets," she says. "One was for jaywalking--I did not know what it was--and one was for having no [swim] bra on the beach. And they were both $75. You know, if you come from Europe, you don't even think about wearing a top on the beach.

Two armed men forced their way into a popular Mid-City restaurant early Friday, holding employees at gunpoint while emptying a safe and cash registers of about $20,000, said Police Department officials. No one was hurt during the 4:45 a.m. incident at Roscoe's House of Chicken 'N Waffles in the 5000 block of West Pico Boulevard. The robbers fled and remain at large. Roscoe's employees declined to comment on the incident. The restaurant opened as usual at 8 a.m. on Friday.