Culinary hubs put new twist on home cooking

Nestled in the dense, residential Los Angeles neighborhood of Victor Heights, a tightly packed plot of Craftsman and Victorian homes has stood the test of time, serving as single-family residences in one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

Yet these bungalows will soon serve a new purpose — micro restaurants offering Taiwanese pineapple cake and freshly ground hamburgers in a compound called Alpine Courtyard, morphing the pleasures of dining out with the nostalgic comforts of home.

This adaptive reuse is part of a growing national trend: From Los Angeles to Nashville, Tennessee, developers are transforming clusters of old homes into walkable culinary hubs for the surrounding high-density neighborhoods.

Advocates see the conversions as a better use for weathered abodes that have been blighted by time and negligence, sustainably preserving the homes while serving the economic needs of the neighborhood.

These types of community-oriented developments provide needed support to residential areas, said Rose Yonai, principal and chair of Tierra West Advisors, a real estate consulting firm in Los Angeles. “Otherwise, after the lights go up and people leave,” she said, “the place is deserted, and there's nowhere to have coffee or dinner.”

But opponents are concerned about the loss of affordable housing and the threat that these commercial developments will displace existing communities. Some older homes are protected by preservation restrictions, but many others face demolition to meet housing demands and make space for new developments.

Converting historic homes into restaurants is not a new phenomenon. For more than 50 years, Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, has been known for its farmto-table fare and a familial setting in a 1930s home. Over the past decade, an entire street of historic bungalows on Rainey Street in Austin, Texas, has slowly transformed into bars and restaurants.

The trend has expanded to Portland, Oregon, along North Mississippi Avenue and Alberta Street and in the Nob Hill neighborhood. Fort Collins in Colorado has a plethora of conversions, some in old farmhouses and others in former fraternity and sorority houses near Colorado State University. In Phoenix, the conversion of old homes into restaurants has evolved alongside rapid urban development downtown and on nearby Roosevelt Row.

The conversions are indicative of neighborhood revitalization, said Stuart A. Gabriel, a finance professor and the director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA. He added that the loss of homes might not be significant enough to move the needle on the housing shortage at large.

“Certainly, we're concerned about the displacement of families,” he said. “On the other hand, there are a whole set of positives in terms of amenities and services, and then improvements, property values and equity gains for the people who actually own housing there.”

For houses to successfully convert to restaurants, he said, certain conditions must exist.

“There's some critical mass of population,” he said, “there's a community or an effort at community building, there's foot traffic and some sort of architectural or other charm to the structure that allows it to be converted into some other use.”

One of the developers of Alpine Courtyard, Jingbo Lou, a restorationist and architect, wanted to maintain the “shell and core” of the homes and property, keeping their original floor plans while converting certain elements for commercial use.

“You see a lot of old houses being used in smaller divisions for very low rent, and retail can do the same thing,” he said. “We're providing smaller, affordable commercial spaces, and for startups with mom-and-pop types of services, having 160 square feet is plenty of space.”

The homes share a courtyard with communal seating, an area that Lou refers to as “your grandma's backyard.” The chefs were picked to complement one another by offering different services but with key similarities: They are all in their mid-30s and have prestigious backgrounds working at acclaimed restaurants but have never opened their own (aside from pop-ups). They also have big social media audiences, which can help with marketing.

One of the entrepreneurs, Jihee Kim, began Perilla as a homegrown food business during the pandemic and opened a physical location in Alpine Courtyard in July, serving Korean banchan in a 260-square-foot converted garage.

“Every day, at least 30 to 40% of customers are repeat, and women more than men,” she said. “They live in this neighborhood, but I also have a lot of people who bought my stuff during the pandemic.”

In another garage, this one 160 square feet, Heavy Water Coffee Shop serves vegan beverages and pastries from Bakers Bench, a kiosk in Chinatown run by Jennifer Yee, who will open a spot in the front half of a Craftsman home on the site. The back half will serve as a third location for Cassell's Hamburgers, Lou's franchise. And Baby Bistro, a 35-seat finedining concept, will take over a single-story Victorian house. Two other Victorian homes on the property are used as offices.

Unlike the house-to-restaurant concepts in Austin and Portland, which became commercial centers over time, Alpine Courtyard stands amid a sea of housing. But as neighborhood models shift with the acceptance of remote work, so might this type of residential conversion.

“I think it's risky but also not risky, because it's well located in a good neighborhood that's going to get denser, which makes the capacity to populate space in a productive way that perhaps didn't exist before,” said Larry J. Kosmont, chair and CEO of Kosmont Cos., a developer in El Segundo.

This type of adaptive reuse has received some backlash, stirring concerns over gentrification, displacement and the loss of affordable housing. Sophat Phea, a graphic designer in Los Angeles, and his family have lived near Alpine Courtyard for more than 15 years.

“I don't think it's a suited business to have in this area and would definitely cause disruption, especially at night when parking is a really big issue,” he said.

Los Angeles County had the highest rates of gentrification in Southern California in 2018, according to the Urban Displacement Project, an initiative from the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley. Eunisses Hernandez, a City Council member whose district includes Victor Heights, said developments should consider the community already there.

“If not, then people are just building and developing for the communities that they wish to see there, and that is what causes displacement,” she said.