Urth Caffé update: Notes from the opening party
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There couldn’t have been a better deal in town Sunday, and there were lines out the door.
Soups, salads, sandwiches, coffees and pastries were free all day at the new Urth Caffé, across the street from the Barker Block lofts. Neighbors, families, students, police officers and others filled the cafe or milled around outside.
By the end of the day, Urth’s owners, Jilla and Shallom Berkman, expected about 5,000 people to have tasted a croissant or the squash soup, tuna sandwiches and pumpkin pie -- or perhaps all of it. At 10 a.m., there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony with local dignitaries, and then the party began....
Jilla Berkman said she soon saw a line out the door and through the terrace, so she sent waiters outside with trays of food. Shallom Berkman, who had returned Friday from Colombia, where he was visiting coffee farms, gave tours of the kitchen, tea room and offices.
Urth has been quietly open for a couple of weeks at the Hewitt Street site, where it also has moved its headquarters. Bakers will work through the night to make pastries for the Urth cafes.
‘I’ve been waiting for it to open for a while,’ said Joseph Saccomanno, a student at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, who was standing and eating outside the cafe with two friends.
Urth Caffé downtown, 451 S. Hewitt St., (213) 797-4534. (For other locations, see www.urthcaffe.com.)
-- Mary MacVean
é by Betty Hallock/Los Angeles Times
