Fires burned up their restaurant jobs. 'From one day to another, we have no work' [View all]
Felipe Ortega has spent 38 years — more than half of his life — working at Gladstones in Pacific Palisades. He started as a busboy and worked his way to bartender and maintenance worker. But for the foreseeable future, the 64-year-old is out of a job.
A week after flames damaged the restaurant and destroyed huge swaths of the oceanside area, Gladstones remained shuttered and inaccessible to the public as the Palisades fire continued to rage.
At the same time, Ortega worried about next month’s rent for his home in Mar Vista. He has bills due, particularly medical bills from his 11-year-old daughter’s bout with appendicitis a few months ago. Those costs have already burrowed through much of the savings he socked away.
“What are we going to do, papi?” his daughter asked him the other day.
He tried to reassure her. But Ortega doesn’t really know.
https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2025-01-15/fundraisers-la-fires-restaurant-workers-out-of-jobs
The LA fires are an epic disaster in so many ways.
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