Uncertain future for Altadena restaurants that survived fire

Three days after the Eaton fire devoured his Altadena home, Leo Bulgarini traveled through his leveled neighborhood, past scorched houses and gutted businesses, to check on his restaurant.

As he approached the corner of Altadena Drive and Lake Avenue, about a half-mile from his incinerated house, he immediately noticed charred rubble where the quirky Bunny Museum and Open Road Bicycle Shop once stood. It was less than a football field away from his restaurant and gelateria, Bulgarini Vino Cucina.

He expected his business had met the same fate.

Not so.

Tucked away in a shopping center courtyard, his restaurant was still standing.

“Why is my business one of the only ones that didn’t burn?” he thought to himself. “Why is everything else burned down?”

He felt a mixture of relief but helplessness.

Inside, the gelateria and restaurant appeared intact.

Then Bulgarini smelled the smoke. He saw the ash on the ground. He noticed water from the roof — likely from firefighters trying to preserve the strip mall — had pooled onto the kitchen floor and some spilled on his gelato machines, likely ruining them.

There was no power. No running water.

That’s when it clicked.

His restaurant had survived the flames of the Eaton fire but might not survive the aftermath.

Leo Bulgarini inside his Altadena restaurant and gelateria after the Eaton fire left his business standing but his neighborhood nearly destroyed.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Bulgarini isn’t alone. Several restaurants in Altadena survived the fire but, with so many of their customers dislocated, now have to contend with what comes next — an uncertain future paired with the mounting costs of cleanup, rent and other operating expenses for businesses that can’t operate.

“It’s a wound that is open,” Bulgarini said of his neighborhood. “Most of the population here is gone. They are not thinking of getting a gelato with their family. They’re not here anymore. Their homes are gone.”

Bulgarini knows at least 12 of his restaurant patrons lost homes to the fire. In Altadena alone, the blaze destroyed more than 9,400 structures and damaged more than 1,000.

“I don’t foresee anyone coming here and spending two hours at dinner,” he says. “This business is pretty much dead for at least a year.”

Bugarini said he likely will temporarily relocate his restaurant elsewhere, possibly Eagle Rock or Montrose. He’d keep the Altadena location but can’t imagine reopening it any time soon. His restaurant, he said, is unusable as a safe space to serve or eat food.

Across the courtyard from Bulgarini, Nancy’s Greek Cafe and adjacent bakery also withstood the fire.

Owner Shawn Shakhmalian had unsuccessfully tried to get into his restaurant for days.

On Monday, he entered his cafe for the first time.

Inside, the restaurant remained unscathed.

Shakhmalian wore an N95 mask as he navigated the kitchen and dining room, some of it covered with dust and ash. The smell of smoke permeated the air.

He dared not open the refrigerator and freezer. The business had lost electricity for several days and he didn’t want to unleash the stench of spoiled food.

Shawn Shakhmalian, owner of Nancy’s Greek Cafe, says he doesn’t know when he will be able to reopen his Altadena restaurant and bakery.

( Cindy Carcamo / Los Angeles Times)

Shakhmalian said he’d lost at least $5,000 in food alone. He had no way of recouping that loss, he said. Last year, he dropped his business insurance because the premium had doubled. He said he couldn’t afford it.

As of Monday, his cafe still had no running water and no electricity. He said he’d have to wait for officials to turn both on first before he could bring in a special crew to clean up what he said may be “toxic” ash and debris.

Before the fire, business was already slow at Nancy’s, Shakhmalian said. The restaurant’s location, which is far from the street in an obscure shopping center, is hard to spot.

“Now, with everyone gone,” he said, “it’s going to be even harder.”

But he doesn’t want to lose his employees, who are already looking for other jobs, he said. At least two of them — including his chef — lost their homes to the fire.

Shakhmalian said he planned to open up in two to four months after regaining power and water but said it may just lead to “another stage of loss.”

“There is a lot of liability to open up again, facing payroll and rent,” he said, “but there are no customers.”

For now, Shakhmalian started a GoFundMe to help rebuild his business.

Bulgarini spent three days cleaning his restaurant, tossing out spoiled meat, fish, pasta and 2,300 pounds of handmade gelato. He calculates he lost $100,000 worth of food because of the specialty ingredients he uses and all the hours of labor it takes to make his gelato and pasta from scratch.

Just his lobster sauce takes three days to reduce before it’s ready.

Among the few food items that survived were his handcrafted nut butters he uses for his artisanal frozen dessert and a $1,200 chunk of Parmesan.

Bulgarini, born and raised in Rome, first learned to make gelato in Sicily. He opened his Altadena gelateria in 2006 and won praise from former Times restaurant critics Jonathan Gold and Patricia Escárcega and former Times Food section editor Amy Scattergood. He built a following because of his reputation for crafting the Italian dessert from some of the best ingredients. The nuts he uses come from Italy, such as prized Bronte pistachios from Sicily. He buys them directly from the nut growers, roasts them and extracts the oils to make his gelato.

Leo Bulgarini holds a sampling of his gelato outside his Altadena gelateria in 2007.

(Stefano Paltera / For The Times)

The 55-year-old said he had insurance on his restaurant, which may cover some of his losses, but likely not all.

He started a GoFundMe to raise money to start again at a new location and support his employees until the Altadena restaurant can reopen safely.

Bulgarini takes issue with outsiders who believe he must be OK because his restaurant is still standing while so many burned down.

“Bulgarini is not OK,” he said of his restaurant. “We’re not a winner at all in any of this. You’ve lost your home so you’ve lost your sanctuary and you really have lost your business right now because it’s not going to be around for a while. There’s no winner here.”

Bulgarini and Shakhmalian have spent most of their days attempting to secure aid and housing for themselves or their employees. They’re navigating the maze of paperwork required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and insurance companies.

Bulgarini said he really hasn’t had much time to mourn the loss of his home, a 1923 Spanish bungalow.

Leo Bulgarini at the site of his destroyed Altadena home after the Eaton fire.

(Albert Lee / Los Angeles Times)

He and his wife, Elizabeth, are too busy, between finding a new place to open the restaurant and making arrangements to keep some sort of normalcy for their 17-year-old son, Lorenzo.

Bulgarini pushes himself to carry on. He needs to work so he can pay his bills and also to keep his sanity, he said.

But there are moments — usually at night — when Bulgarini can’t help but feel down. The helplessness sinks in and the questions take over.

“Why couldn’t you do more?” he thinks to himself. “ Why couldn’t you save your friend’s house?”

Over the years, he’s realized that it helps to shift out of this sort of funk if he writes down what he’s thinking.

Tuesday night, he put pencil to paper and wrote: “I’m still alive.”