Steakhouse, No Match for Crime, Will Close

Edward Rausch, his hands shaking and his voice breaking, said Wednesday he is closing his landmark steakhouse near MacArthur Park.

It’s not his age or the grind of serving thousands of meals a month that prompted Rausch, 73, to tell employees and loyal customers this week that he is selling his popular restaurant and bar a block south of the park on Alvarado Street.

Edward’s Steak House will be sold, Rausch said, “because our most dreadful nightmares have come true.”

Overrun with crack dealers, pimps and panhandlers, Rausch said he no longer recognizes the once-fashionable, Westlake-MacArthur Park neighborhood, where he proudly opened Edward’s Coffee Shop in 1946, and eventually built a thriving lunch and dinner establishment.

Merchants and residents, he said, have become “captives” of wandering bands of transients, who gather by the hundreds in the park during the day, only to drift into nearby alleys and crawl spaces at night when police close the park.

After dark, Rausch said, his parking lots behind the restaurant become makeshift camps for scores of homeless.

“I now fear for my customers, my employees and this neighborhood,” Rausch told a small group of friends who gathered Wednesday under the restaurant’s simple burgundy awning at the front door. “This neighborhood, with it’s wonderful park, was once the garden spot of Los Angeles. But no more. I’m closing as soon as I can sell this place.”

Other merchants in the troubled neighborhood--now one of the most crime-ridden in the city--mourned Rausch’s announcement, saying it did not have to happen if police and city officials had stepped up efforts to retake the neighborhood from a host of invaders.

Fear in the neighborhood is apparently well founded. In the first four months of 1990, the Rampart Division, including the MacArthur Park area, had 8,958 reported crimes, the highest among the Los Angeles Police Department’s 20 divisions.

Despite the spiraling criminal activity around MacArthur Park, Rausch spent thousands of dollars in recent years to hire parking guards and move the restaurant’s entrance from Alvarado Street to a more protected area at the rear of the building. The actions of Rausch, a respected businessman, were interpreted by others as a signal to stay and fight.

Thus, word of Rausch’s intentions to pull out was a blow to many.

“It was like a shot to the ribs,” said Jim Gindraux, a regular at Edward’s since the mid-1950s. Gindraux was among 3,500 patrons who received letters from Rausch this week outlining plans to close the restaurant once the property is sold. “At first I was mad . . . then I got a little misty-eyed.”

Peter Daniels, president of the MacArthur Park Foundation, a coalition of business owners and residents, called it “a sad day in the Westlake neighborhood.” He said Rausch’s departure should “send a message to politicians that good people no longer have the energy to fight this battle alone.”

City Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who represents the MacArthur Park area and presented Rausch with a ceremonial certificate, said her City Hall colleagues are working to improve conditions. Protecting local businesses from drifters and drug dealers is a priority, she said. “It just takes money,” she said. “We’ve had some success, and we’re trying to do more.”

But Rausch’s 37-year-old son, Ken, remained unconvinced. He recalled that in his childhood waitresses from the restaurant would take him on Sunday afternoons to the lake at MacArthur Park for boat rides while his father ran the restaurant.

Now, he says, he will not set foot in the park, which has one of the largest congregations of homeless in the city.

“Most of those people are not violent. They just need help,” said Ken Rausch, who manages the Alvarado restaurant and a second steakhouse the family owns in El Monte. “Many of them are drug addicts and they need rehabilitation. That’s where government must help. But until it does, don’t look for this neighborhood to turn around.”

At its peak, Edward’s sold as many as 27,000 meals a month. But recently, the monthly average has fallen to 11,000, and the restaurant’s founder said he knew weeks ago the end was near. He is offering the 7,500-square-foot restaurant and adjoining parking lots for $2.2 million, and a real estate saleswoman marketing the property said she hopes to sell it to Korean restaurant interests.

The steakhouse will remain open until it is sold.

“This goes beyond money. It goes beyond the 40 employees who will lose their jobs. It goes to a neighborhood seeking to save itself,” Rausch said. “I just hope for the sake of my neighbors, it’s not too late. It is for me.”