L.A.’s iconic steakhouse Pacific Dining Car is pivoting to selling its steaks through an online marketplace, the longstanding restaurant over the weekend announced on Facebook. In doing so, the 99-year-old Pacific Dining Car, which over nearly a century has been run across four generations, is auctioning off bits and pieces of its Westlake storefront. News of the company’s original location auction arrives nearly three months after Pacific Dining Car’s 30-year-old Santa Monica restaurant closed for good.
The auction is currently underway and expires on Friday, Sept. 18. Among the items being auctioned off is Pacific Dining Car’s marquee sign. Other items include things like a “vintage cash register,” art, lighting, and even the vests and jackets worn by staff.
Owner Wesley Idol III confirmed the news Monday in a telephone interview with What Now Los Angeles. “Right now we don’t know what the future will hold for the brick-and-mortar but we’re not leveraged by having a landlord which certainly provides some flexibility,” Idol said. The restaurateur is taking the pandemic as an opportunity to “pivot” and “move towards something new.”
While the auction includes a whopping 232 items which will all but leave the restaurant’s floors and walls remaining, Idol says the restaurant, at 1310 W 6th St., isn’t going away completely like the Santa Monica location. The plan is to rethink the business model, as he’s doing with the online marketplace, and possibly reopening in the future with delivery, takeout, to-go, and maybe even dine-in again at some point.
“This is not the end of anything,” Idol said. “This is the beginning of something new. One of my goals in this life is to make sure that the Pacific Dining Car baton is shining and strong when I hand it off to the next generation.”
