It was business as usual at Fair Oaks Burger on the evening of January 7, 2025, until the power went out at 6:45 p.m. Thirty minutes earlier, co-owner Janet Lee says, a customer in the drive-thru had warned the restaurant employees about a growing fire in Eaton Canyon. Standing in the parking lot and seeing the encroaching flames, which had progressed from the hillside to residential and commercial areas, Lee realized the risk of staying until the shop’s typical closure time of 8 p.m. “We told our employees, let’s just leave everything. We’ll come back tomorrow. We can clean in the morning. Let’s just be safe. So we all evacuated,” Lee says. The final burger of the day was flipped and served — the last customer kept the receipt — and everyone left the building, unaware of what would happen in the hours to come.
Lee grabbed her parents, who live just up the street from Fair Oaks Burger, and convened with her entire family at her home in Valley Glen. “Both my parents were in their pajamas. All they had was their driver’s licenses and some money they hid in the freezer,” she says. Two days later, via social media, the Lees found out that their parents’ home in Altadena burned down, but their restaurant, which has been a staple in the community since the 1980s, was still standing.
In February, just three weeks later, the Lee family and their employees opened up a temporary kitchen on the patio of Fair Oaks Burger and resumed feeding their community in a series of hot food distribution events funded by World Central Kitchen. This collaboration started when the family was approached by community organizer Susan Park, who suggested doing food distribution events that Park would pay for out of pocket. Once World Central Kitchen found out about the plan, they stepped in and paid for the food, and more community organizations reached out to collaborate.
On community event days, a DJ set up where drive-thru customers usually wait for their orders, playing cumbia remixes of classic pop hits. Community members lined up in droves to get hot food dishes like cheeseburgers, chicken teriyaki bowls, pancakes, and breakfast burritos, made in an assembly line on the patio. In the parking lot, tables were covered with fresh produce provided by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, clothes from Out of the Closet, and shelf-stable items from Home of Kings and Queens. World Food Bank community health workers were also on site assisting with disaster relief.
On Saturday, March 29, Fair Oaks Burger became the site of the Altadena Not For Sale Rally, co-organized by My Tribe Rise. The parking lot was packed with 550 Altadena residents and supporters of the community’s plans to keep Altadena property in the ownership of its residents and local business owners — and out of the grip of developers. People watched performances by local musicians, shared food, and spent time with their neighbors, many of whom are still displaced and living in areas outside of Altadena. To provide for the crowd, Mary’s Sweets and Churros and Big Grandma’s Kitchen set up alongside Food For Health.
Although the partnership with World Central Kitchen concluded on Saturday, April 5, the community events outside of Fair Oaks Burger will continue for as long as there is a need for them, Lee says. The family is collaborating with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) — a partnership that Lee describes as “a dream,” as the foundation helps support costs like the collection and disposal of trash that accumulates from the events. The AHF project Food for Health distributes fresh produce every Saturday in the restaurant’s parking lot.
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Starting Saturday, April 12, Out of the Closet will be at Fair Oaks Burger with free clothes every other week until the need for clothing runs out. Every Wednesday, shelf-stable items are distributed in an event dubbed Wellness Wednesday. On Thursday, April 17, Fed-Ex, Feed the Children, Watch It Grow Inc., the World Food Bank Kitchen and Urban Farm, Aaron Cultural Community Center, and Altadena 2030 will be partnering with Fair Oaks Burger for another Wellness Wednesday distribution event. Residents are encouraged to bring shopping bags and carts to gather shelf-stable food, canned goods, snacks, water, beverages, and brand-new clothes. “That’s going to be a big event for people in the community,” Lee says.
With help from the Hollywood Food Coalition, Lee and her sister Christy have created the Feed Altadena Fund. A limited amount of free hot meals will be distributed to Altadena residents during the Wednesday and Saturday events: Attendees at Fair Oaks Burger during event windows will be able to purchase breakfast burritos, burgers, and chicken bowls, and 10 percent of the profit from these sales will go toward funding meals for displaced residents.
One community partnership leads to another. Through AHF, Lee met Boyle Heights muralist Robert Vargas, the artist behind the celebrated 150-foot-tall Little Tokyo mural of Dodger Shohei Ohtani. Vargas plans to paint a mural on the southern wall of the restaurant to represent the resilience of the Altadena community.
By early May, Fair Oaks Burger hopes to reopen its doors and christen a new grill. After the fire, the restaurant had been sitting untouched and without power. The amount of asbestos, lead, and other chemicals that circulated on the restaurant’s block has prompted the family to focus on transforming the inside of the restaurant — replacing all the equipment and redoing the flooring. Because the building itself didn’t burn, Lee is not getting much assistance from insurance — instead, she’s waiting on a loan; using money from the restaurant’s GoFundMe, which currently is at 13 percent of its goal; and paying for equipment with money out-of-pocket.
“We’ll be in debt, but we’ll be able to open,” Lee says.
