The Arby’s restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, famous for its enormous, neon-clad hat sign, has shuttered its doors after 55 years. Its last day of operation came earlier this year.
On a Monday, at the back of the lot, Gary Husch — general manager of the Arby’s and son-in-law of its original owner — was carting out trash and caught a reporter staring at the bones of the drive-through menu.
The menu was already a polyptych of long, fluorescent tubes. The Arby’s marquee, sprawled with advertisements for the chain’s affordable, slow-roasted beef sandwiches a few days ago, now reads: “Farewell Hollywood. TY for 55 great years.”
“You know, they’re not making those signs anymore,” Husch said. “It was the 150th Arby’s location ever opened.”
Since its opening in January 1969, the Hollywood Arby’s has had a single owner, Marilyn Leviton, who is 91 years old and Husch’s mother-in-law.
Husch said that the Arby’s was simply no longer sustainable. He pointed to a combination of pandemic fallout in a changing neighborhood, rising food costs and the recent law that raised the minimum wage of fast-food workers in California.
“The customer count has gone down over the last few years. A lot of the offices around this area are empty now, and we’re just not getting the same foot traffic we did before,” Husch said. “With inflation, food costs have gone way up and the $20-an-hour minimum wage has been the nail in the coffin.”
Leviton was active in the business till the very end, he added.
“Truth is, I think it was the pandemic that did us in,” she told KTLA News recently. “I really feel we would have closed during the pandemic [if it weren’t] for the federal loans.”
California’s new law that creates a separate minimum wage applicable only to fast food restaurant employees took effect on April 1, 2024. Under Labor Code Section 1475 (LC 1475), this minimum wage is $20 per hour. It represents a significant increase from the current statewide minimum wage of $16 that went into effect at the beginning of the year. Many local jurisdictions within the state already have a minimum wage above $16 per hour, but none as high as $20 per hour.
What do you think? Did the owners of the restaurant close it down because of expenses OR do you think they didn't want to pay the hard workers that extra coin?
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