Goddamnit…
Our last day will Sunday, January 13th, 2008.
We’ve been at 1710 Silver Lake Blvd since 2001 [they mean 1991 -CKB]– going on seventeen years! We’ve been in business since 1989 – almost twenty years! Feels like twenty minutes. Whoosh!
I wish I could say we are leaving happily, but the snarky fact is that our landlady, Myrna Marin, owner of Modem Salon, kicked us out with only thirty days notice in December. I guess this was her Christmas present to us and our staff. Well, at least that’s how we’re taking it.
We’ve far outgrown our current space and now we get to do business in a bigger location. As we finalize those arrangements we will post new info. I wish I could say how long that will take, but over the years I have learned that nothing happens as quickly or as slowly as we need it.
What we do know is that our staff will stay with us until this last day and will follow us to our new location and we hope our beloved customers will do the same. We have had a rare privilege in getting to know and serve all of our wonderful neighbors over the years. We hope to be able to do this for another twenty years. At least.
Much love,
Deborah and Reno.
P.S. We will happily accept letters from any and all of you who would like wish us well, tell us what we’ve meant to you, or tell our new landlord how happy you’d be to have us in a new location.
OK so upfront, I’m somewhat neutral on rent raise/gentrification issues (yeah, blight is generally bad but be careful what you wish for), but this kicks me in the teeth. Back Door’s coffee, buttermilk scones, and ginger pear muffins have been a fundamental part of my Los Angeles commuting life since 1994. Their baked stuff is consistently outstanding and I’m going to be extra irritated by their absence. I hope they have a new place lined up soon.
It appears some irony lights are burning out there because landlady Marin’s web page has this quote:
A native Angeleno, Myrna earned her license before she even graduated high school. At 25, she opened her own salon on a sleepy stretch of Silver Lake Boulevard. Now the area is ground zero for the progressive Silver Lake scene, something that was established by artists like Myrna who saw the potential of the neighborhood and built it from the ground up.
So apparently it’s now time to purge out those artists. I can’t help but think that this takes a sawed-off shotgun to the entire middle section of Silver Lake Blvd. Back Door caters to a lot of folks: commuters, dog parkers, shambling musicians all of whom wouldn’t have any reason to pay attention to that strip of Silver Lake Blvd. during the day. It’s going to be a ghost town down there.
Meanwhile, the replacement restaurant for the still-missed Netty’s was supposed to open a year ago. It hasn’t yet. If memory serves, this leaves only Leela Thai, Michelangelo and the 7-11 as the only evening eating options. Sigh.
 
