Devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County turn years of small business owners' work to ashes, leaving livelihoods in ruins.
Paul Rosenbluh was in Vancouver, Washington, finalizing the purchase of a new restaurant when he received the news that his existing establishment in Altadena, California, had been destroyed by fire.
He and his wife, Monique King, had operated Fox’s Restaurant, a beloved "gem on the hill" in the Los Angeles suburb, since 2017. The diner, a local fixture since 1955, was reduced to a charred skeleton, a sight Rosenbluh first encountered this week via a Facebook video sent to him after the Eaton Fire tore through the area.
"I don’t want to say [we’re] exchanging one restaurant for another, but that’s kind of how it’s going to transpire," Rosenbluh recounted about his thoughts during the 14-hour drive back to Altadena. "We literally just closed escrow on Tuesday when all this stuff started to go down."
He is among numerous small-business owners across the greater Los Angeles area who are just beginning to grapple with the devastating wildfires that have swept through the region, turning decades of history and years of entrepreneurial endeavors into piles of ash in a matter of hours.
Business at Fox’s had been consistently strong, Rosenbluh noted — it always had been. The diverse neighborhood is home to many long-time residents who have retired there, ensuring a steady stream of "tons and tons of regulars" at the diner.
"They came into the restaurant, [I] talked to them back in the alley. We knew these people," he said. Now, many of their homes are "just gone."
The couple is currently working out how their other restaurants in the area — Cindy’s and Little Beast, both in Eagle Rock — can accommodate Fox’s approximately 15 employees, as their own operations remain on high alert due to the ongoing fires. While Fox’s was insured, Rosenbluh expressed little optimism about rebuilding it.
"If all the infrastructure is gone, well, you can’t rebuild a building if you have no power or gas or water," he said. "Or customers."
Others who have lost their businesses, such as Candace Frazee, co-founder of the Bunny Museum, remain resolute.
"We will rebuild," she declared, despite the property’s insurance not covering construction expenses. In an Instagram story announcing the end of the location’s 27-year run, Frazee appealed for donations of a building to the organization, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
The Guinness World Record-certified museum, a beloved Altadena landmark filled with rabbit-themed memorabilia ranging from antique pieces to pop-culture artifacts, burned down on Wednesday morning after an overnight effort during which Frazee and her husband attempted to control the fire by hosing down the building.
"Feeling still in shock," she said on Friday. "It was standing, and then it wasn’t."
In contrast to long-established businesses, Aether was just beginning to cultivate a loyal customer base when it was consumed by the flames, according to owner Kristina Adam.
She opened the wellness studio just over a year ago, two blocks from the rental home she shared with her husband and 2-year-old daughter in the Pacific Palisades. By Thursday afternoon, they had evacuated to a friend’s home in the West L.A. area — escaping to safety but unable to save either property from the devastation.
Adam said she had built Aether’s clientele from the ground up to hundreds, offering retreats, energy readings, and yoga sessions. Like Rosenbluh, she witnessed her hard work reduced to ashes from afar on her phone screen, through texted video footage.
"The roof was gone, the walls were burning, the staircase in front was burning," she recounted. "That was a very heartbreaking moment."
Adam mentioned that she had recently begun collaborating with other businesses in Topanga Beach to host group wellness events. She suspects those partners’ studios are likely gone as well. "I don’t know if anybody’s thinking about what comes from here on out, because the Palisades are pretty much wiped out," she said.
It may take some time before Adam and other members of the local business community are fully aware of each other’s plans and situations. Recent days have brought harrowing experiences for some residents who have struggled to locate family members during the emergency.
On Thursday, James Benjamin posted a message on the Instagram account of Wylie’s Bait Shop, a Topanga Beach institution since 1946: "If anyone has any contact with Ginny or knows her whereabouts, please DM this account. She doesn’t have a cell phone."
Benjamin, 23, who manages the store’s social media, was referring to his great aunt, Ginny Wylie. The bait shop owner, whom Benjamin said is in her 80s, had not been heard from for over 24 hours.
"We’ve been posting on NextDoor, and we’ve also been calling the Red Cross and different shelters," he said on Thursday afternoon. "I know she was escorted by a sheriff, but I don’t know exactly who."
Wylie, who could not be reached by NBC News, inherited the shop from her grandparents, the original owners, and became a local authority on Malibu surf fishing. "Be ready to spend some time and share some stories," one Yelp reviewer wrote in 2018. "She always helps you feel like you’re a kid about to go fishing with grandpa. Not many places like this in the world."
Wylie’s was "a huge hub of the Topanga-Malibu surf fishing community," Benjamin said, adding that his great aunt is "definitely like a legend."
Wylie had been seen leaving the store on Wednesday morning and attempted to call her family from a shelter, he said. Since then, customers had reported on social media that the shop was engulfed in flames along with other nearby properties.
By Thursday afternoon, Benjamin reported that authorities had located his great aunt at a makeshift shelter set up in a Ralph’s supermarket. "She’s still there and in good spirits," he said late on Friday.
A few miles away in the Palisades, another Ralph’s location had already burned to the ground.