Outrageous operating LA city costs force popular vegan eatery to close

Another longtime Los Angeles restaurant is off the menu.

Un Solo Sol, a vegan mainstay that dished out meat-free Latin American eats on the city’s east side for 16 years, announced it has no choice but to pull the plug on Sept. 28.

Owner Carlos Ortez broke the bitter news on social media — blaming a lethal cocktail of soaring costs, inflation and a merciless economy that’s putting the squeeze on business owners all over LA, and certainly in the restaurant’s gentrifying Boyle Heights neighborhood.

“This decision was not made lightly,” Ortez announced yesterday. “As many of you know, the current economic climate has placed unprecedented pressure on small, independent businesses. Rising operational costs, inflation, and the broader challenges facing the restaurant industry have made sustaining a small footprint increasingly difficult.”

Located across 1st Street from Mariachi Plaza, the colorful yellow-and-green storefront built a following by blending traditional culinary heritage with plant-based practices.

Popular dishes included a hearty vegan pozole stew, dairy free pupusas, and even the Persian stew ghormeh sabzi, made with herbs and beans instead of meat.

Un Solo Sol stopped turning a profit in 2022, Ortez admitted — telling the Boyle Heights Beat that he has been dipping into his own pockets to keep it going ever since.

The restaurant’s woes were compounded by a string of crises that has battered businesses in the historic neighborhood in recent years, he said — including a recent, high-profile warehouse fire that left millions of pounds of food to rot for weeks.

Fans of the restaurant found the news tough to take.

“We are heartbroken by this news,” a neighboring business, Espacio 1839, commented on Un Solo Sol’s post. “It’s been such a rough year. In the 14 years that we’ve been on the block, this year has been the most challenging and please know that this brutal economy does not undo your incredible hard work.”

“Such heartbreaking news,” a devastated patron wrote. “So many LA restaurants are closing! This will only make the gentrification in this city worse!”

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Ortez said he “fought hard” to keep prices accessible — but that the business had “reached a point where we must pause.”

While the plan is to take a “strategic rest,” he insisted that this isn’t the end — and said he plans to eventually return with a new plant-based concept.