A century-old building with a rich Hollywood history was named a monument. Then it went up in flames

Once home to a luxury steakhouse frequented by stars like Mae West, a century-old building on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles went up in flames during the early morning hours Saturday.

First opened in 1921, the Pacific Dining Car restaurant was housed inside a replica of a railway train car, lending a unique atmosphere to what would become a favorite of Old Hollywood. Over the next nearly 100 years, it was a fixture of fine dining in LA and a filming location for television shows and movies including 1974's "Chinatown" starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway and the 2001 film "Training Day" with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. 

The restaurant would become known as a swanky spot for local politicians and celebrities, with its pricey prime steaks and vast wine collection. The late Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold wrote in 1990 that the restaurant "prices its steaks out of the reach of anybody but six-figure businessmen."

Just last year, its vacant building officially became a historic cultural monument in the city of Los Angeles. It was more than 100 years after the restaurant was first founded by Fred and Grace "Lovey" Cook.

Around 1 a.m. Saturday, firefighters managed to put out a blaze that had engulfed the more than 100-year-old, 5,500-square foot building, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department, although the extent of the damage remains unclear. No injuries were reported.

As those behind the restaurant tell it, last year's monument designation was supposed to be the beginning of restoration efforts bringing the iconic LA restaurant back to its former glory. Before surviving the Great Depression in its earliest years, it opened in the wake of the Great Influenza epidemic. Ninety-nine years later, it would close its doors just months into the next international pandemic.

When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered restaurants around the world in 2020, the Pacific Dining Car closed down its Santa Monica location.

But there were no plans to permanently shut down the restaurant's original, iconic location inside a replica train car at 1310 West 6th Street, in the Westlake district neighboring downtown LA.

Wes Idol III, great-grandson of the original owners, told Los Angeles Magazine in September 2020 that he was committed to keeping its doors open — even as much of the restaurant's equipment and pieces of its interior went up for auction.

"I have zero interest in having my family's legacy go away," Idol told the magazine. "There's something very productive in a pause."

Last year, when the city of LA officially named the building a historic cultural monument, it seemed like a chance to finally bring it back to life. The declining health of Wes Idol III's father was one reason why the family trust, including the restaurant group, was left to his second wife, Toby Idol, according to the restaurant's website.

She had dismantled it but was stopped from demolishing the remaining building when it became an official LA city monument in May 2023, according to the website.

"Toby Idol loses bid to demolish the century-old landmark," the website reads. "Wes Idol begins next phase towards restoration goals."

As a historic cultural monument, the building receives protections meant to preserve it as a prized piece of LA history. Currently, on its Yelp page, it's still listed as only "temporarily closed."

But ever since its doors shut in 2020, and Wes Idol III turned his focus to online sales of steaks and deliveries, the Pacific Dining Car never fully reopened. It's unclear what restoration efforts may have been underway when the vacant building went up in flames early Saturday.

Offering high-end dining, and 24-hour service since the mid-1990s, it was a one-of-a-kind late night spot and one of the oldest restaurants in the city. And as such, it attracted a special, diverse sort of crowd, as written by columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson in a Los Angeles Times piece paying homage following the restaurant's 2020 closure.

"Despite the cost, L.A.'s dearth of middle-of-the-night eating options meant that Pacific Dining Car ended up attracting every kind of person you could imagine — couples in prom clothes, nurses in scrubs, slick producer types, foreign tourists and their children, and club kids who decided, for whatever reason, that they wanted to cap a night out with a bone-in rib-eye, creamed spinach and Roquefort mashed potatoes," Peterson wrote.

"You could waltz in wearing ripped jeans and a ball cap and sit next to a couple dressed for the Vanity Fair Oscar party and no one would look at you sideways," he wrote. "In that sense, it was the most egalitarian of restaurants."