Empress Pavilion: End of a Dim Sum Era
End of a Dim Sum Era! Remembering Empress Pavilion One of the icons of Chinatown in Los Angeles closed for good in early June 2013. It was a large Hong Kong-style restaurant that opened in 1989. It was a good 24+ year run! I had heard some comments in the industry that they were having issues, but my first thought was come on...I guess it was true. According to the Los Angeles Times , they were evicted, the restaurant owners fell behind on rent. I remember when this center opened, filled with all kinds of shops and a market on the ground floor. Today when I visited, the market has been gone for many years now, the escalators are out of order, most of the stores are empty, the building needs repair work, and there was no way I was getting into the elevators... It's sad to see the condition that this center is in, but the saddest part is the 100+ employees of Empress Pavilion now out of work, some of t...