It was a bit of a miracle that I even got a job at Rustic in the first place. This was back in 2015 and my first couple of months in L.A. was a complete nightmare. I had so much experience but no one wanted to hire me. I also flubbed a bunch of job interviews and I had been going on so many of them, I stopped taking them seriously and tried all sorts of different strategies…Indifference, overconfidence, babe in the woods…None of them worked. I felt like I couldn’t just be myself…I mean, up to that point, for my entire life, I had always gotten a job I applied for, partially because I had an in of some sort by knowing someone who worked at the place but even in the cases I didn’t, my resume spoke for itself. Part of the reason I had such a hard time out here was due to the fact that all my experience was in Boston, not a town known for its culinary superiority even though things had accelerated quite well in the time I lived there since the dark days of pub chow.

At any rate, through insane luck, I got a job at Rustic Canyon as a bartender/waiter. I’ve told the story somewhere within the confines of this blog somewhere before. When I say insane luck, I mean it. In 2015, Rustic was #5 on the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants list. In 2016 we fell a bit to 11 which at the time seemed crazy. In 2017, we remained at the #11 spot. 2018 and 2019 saw another bit of a slide, but after food critic Jonathon Gold’s death in 2018, no one took the list as seriously anymore.

In the beginning of 2019, the restaurant was deathly slow, one of those times where everyone thought about jumping ship, and then of course we received our first Michelin Star in the summer of that year and business skyrocketed until…Yes, all the shutdowns in March of 2020. More trials, more craziness. I worked from June 2020 until November 2020 when the second shutdown occurred. We reopened in late January of 2021, business was great, we received our second star and life was grand. Great money, a busy place, all the accolades…Fast forward to 2022 and inflation, the threat of recession, and many others factors…We lose the Michelin, we slow down. And now in 2023 the 101 list comes out and we’re not even on it.

I’m not going to use this forum to figure any of it out, or point fingers here and there. I’m just going to say that it blows. I still think we’re one of the best out there and to not be on the list at all is just a huge disappointment. We really just want to be the best neighborhood restaurant. That’s all.

Many restaurants go through huge life cycles. Ups, downs. We’ve been on Wilshire Boulevard since 2006. How many other places can say that? And how many of the places on the current 101 list will even be here next year? An editor from a semi-popular rag was in recently and said Rustic is so well known but also so old that it’s hard to create any sort of narrative for it that hasn’t already been done. People want to hear about the new shiny stuff. The young chefs, the sparkling interiors. I’m glad all those guys are doing well and want them to be busy but I also want to be busy again. Like I said, we’ve been having some serious inconsistencies in business, we’re super grateful for everyone that comes in and we could be a lot slower like we have been in the past but personally I think we’re being overlooked. I mean, to not even make it into the 101 is fucking tough.

It’s a total cliche but the only thing to do is to get better. It’s a wake up call for everyone including myself who’s been there for eight goddam years now and seen the rise the fall the rise the fall…All the iterations…It just sucks when you know in your heart you’re doing good work but just not getting the recognition you deserve because although the accolades are for the birds, they really boost business because people see them and follow them.