Dear Friend of the Chili Bowl,

Thank you for joining more than 575 concerned citizens who have signed the petition urging councilmember Mike Bonin to pause the pending demolition permit and help to move L.A.’s last Chili Bowl from its longtime home at 12244 West Pico Boulevard to a safe location within the city of Los Angeles. This campaign is spreading, and we so appreciate your passion for the big bowl.

Since the negative PLUM landmarking vote on Tuesday afternoon, we’ve been working the phones and on the road, seeking practical win/win solutions by which the city can help protect and preserve this threatened cultural landmark.

We’ve learned a lot and talked with many people who want to help. Even with a demolition permit request on file and a property owner eager to tear it down, we truly believe that if Mike Bonin is willing to come to the table, the Chili Bowl can still be saved.

New on the Save the Chili Bowl info page on the Esotouric website, you’ll find photos from two site visits made this week by Friends of the Chili Bowl. Steven Luftman checked up on the Pico Chili Bowl we’re fighting to save, and found it in relatively good shape.

Richard and I went out to see its derelict sibling in Glendale, for a cautionary tale of how quickly one of these structures can fall into decay. Just a few years ago, it was the office for a used car dealership, but today it looks like a good wind would blow it over. It made us sick to see one of these cool buildings without a roof and covered in graffiti.

The Pico branch has been so well cared for by its various owners and operators since 1935—we just can’t let it be demolished!

To those of you on the West Side: please make the Chili Bowl part of your route when it’s convenient, and let us know if you see any worrying signs of pending demolition or blight on the property.

And to those of you on the East Side, check out the new Ho Kee BBQ & Noodle, now doing business in the longtime Kim Chuy restaurant location at 501 West Valley Boulevard, Alhambra, CA 91803. This is the only original Chili Bowl currently open for business, and it’s a San Gabriel Valley treasure!

If you’d like to know more about how we got involved with this preservation campaign, we wrote about it in our weekly newsletter: Just when we try to go on hiatus... BOOM! The preservation Bat Signal calls on us to help save the world's biggest Chili Bowl.

And if you’d like to learn more about strange Los Angeles roadside attractions like the Chili Bowl, we have a webinar all about them: The Weird World of Programmatic Los Angeles Architecture.

That's our story. What's yours? Please continue to share the petition (http://www.change.org/SaveTheChiliBowl) with friends who love the Chili Bowl and want to see it saved. And stay tuned for additional news as we have it.

Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave
Friends of the Chili Bowl