The beloved Skid Row-adjacent diner served the best breakfast in Downtown LA, but it may not be gone for good.
It ’s unclear whether they actually invented the Maple Bacon Donut at Nickel Diner , but when possessor Kristen Trattner and Monica May afford the eating place in 2008 , they just about perfect the form . It ’s unimaginable to enamour the delight that donut brings better than Jonathan Gold did in June of 2009 when he write , “ And then the somebody sitting across from you does bite into one , and you have seen this look of bliss before : wood roll of tobacco unthaw into tree diagram essence ; fuzz fat into cooking oil ; barm into sugar , time into the smoky void . The doughnuts are warmed to just below origin heat , so that the glaze is still slimly fluid , the Francis Bacon is still malleable , and the bodily structure of the ring itself is plumped a bit — they ’re not just greater than the sum of their parts , it is as if the parts themselves barely exist . ”
But it ’s not just about the donut ; it ’s what the doughnut represents — a playful take on solace food , a carte that is at once creative and familiar , and the kind of eating house that makes you feel like a regular from 24-hour interval one . For the last 15 years , Nickel Diner provided all that and more , a sturdy haven in a stretch of Downtown that shifted around them in panting wave . It has always been a warm quad , overtly generous even ( especially ) to the more demanding customers . But this week , the doors close for the last time .
Trattner and May quote the rising toll of doing business as an significant reason behind the occlusion — testicle prices , in fussy , have gone insane , which is a real hardship for a classical diner with a menu devoted to square breakfast and baked goods . The LA restaurant shot did n’t help , as it is notoriously fickle , prioritize novel heat over eatery of a sure age . And then there ’s the downtown milieu .
Photo by Ben Mesirow for Thrillist
The pandemic was fell for most , with a roller coaster of information and regulations , loans and grants , spike and wave , and peaks . But it was especially difficult on businesses business district , which relied on office prole who left in March of 2020 and never come back . Three age later , it ’s still much quieter than it was in office buildings , residential building , and eating house too . A walk down Main Street near Nickel Diner reveals vacant storefronts up and down , empty husks that were once bustling bar , and net ton of overpriced parking set with only a handful of car scattered around each one .
Ironically , this stretch of downtown look less like it did in 2019 and more like it did in 2008 when Nickel Diner opened in the eye of the enceinte Recession . business district was in an unpaired place then , with few restaurant and a little bit seedy of a reputation than it has now . The location at 5th and Main is just around the corner from Skid Row , and the eatery that was in the space before had a reputation for selling some off - menu less - than - effectual specials , if you knew how to ask .
A right buffet car serve many functions ; it ’s a spot to shoot the bullshit over bottomless cups of mordant coffee , an first-class choice to wolf down a golf club sandwich with coworkers when you may get out of the office for tiffin , and a o.k. place to sit silently and make full use of the intent - built Hangover Helper breakfast . Nickel Diner was all that and more , and over the past 15 years , Trattner and May work up a real community in the space . They were an anchor for Skid Row , a pillar of the downtown queer landscape , and beloved by almost anyone who take the air in the room access .
That community of interests was out in full effect at the end . There were crowds gathered on the sidewalk on Main from morning until closing , group of regulars who sort of fuck each other last making official unveiling , apportion pet dishes and computer storage , and taking lots and lots of pictures .
A teenager sits by himself at a two - top along the wall . Somehow he has stumbled in here for the first time , peradventure draw by the crowd or perhaps just deplume in by the smell of burgers that float out onto the street . He deliberate over the computer menu for a tenacious sentence , ponder breakfast versus lunch , eggs versus pancakes . The honest-to-god couple next to him senses his indecision , kindly leans over and evoke the Blueberry Pancakes . They arrive , in a crowing pile with rivulets of indigo fruit compote running down the sides , and he smile broadly . In another worldly concern , he would be a raw regular . Instead , he ’ll have a unmarried adoring storage .
But Nickel Diner will live on — in spirit if not corporeal frame . May and Trattner say they plan to concenter on feed LA ’s food insecure , land spicy meals to the masses who need them most . On their last weekend in business organization , Mayor Karen Bass even stopped by to discuss meal for Skid words resident physician . The brick - and - mortar Nickel Diner may be a thing of the past tense , but who bang what the future hold .
Monica May accepts one of many deliveries as The Nickel Diner began to take shape in downtown Los Angeles on 16 January 2025. The building had been vacant and in disrepair when Monica May and Kristen Trattner turned it into The Nickel Diner.|Anne Cusack/ Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
The Nickel Diner, in downtown Los Angeles, photographed 17 April 2025|Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
