All eyes are on Grand Central Market, and not just because the historic culinary hub just turned 100; as of yesterday, the food hall and Downtown landmark is surprisingly under new ownership.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the sale closed on Tuesday when Beverly Hills-based real estate firm Langdon Street Capital acquired the property for an undisclosed amount. The company could not be reached for comment, but it now lists Grand Central Market as one of its properties, in addition to the neighboring Grand Central Square, a mixed-use lot that includes the Million Dollar Theater, 120 multifamily units, 20,000 square feet of office space and a 500-space parking lot.
The beloved food hall, in continuous operation since its 1917 founding, is currently home to 39 vendors, including the general store in the basement and one of the city’s most consistent culinary lines, Eggslut. There are food stalls that have been selling since the 1950s and ’60s, currently serving alongside concepts mere months old; it’s this mix of old and new that makes the market such an icon of the city’s past and present, as well as our diverse food scene and population. It would be a shame for this to change under the new ownership, but fortunately, this doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
“We just want to safeguard this place,” Langdon Street Capital’s president, Adam Daneshgar, told the Times’ Roger Vincent. “We are not looking to go in and change or overhaul anything.” According to Vincent, Langdon Street Capital will invest millions in aesthetic improvements to the space, which include painting and cleaning.
Daneshgar’s company acquired the historic food hall from Adele Yellin, the widow of developer and entrepreneur Ira Yellin. Adele, who also could not be reached for comment, is largely credited with the revitalization of Grand Central Market after purchasing it in the ’80s. She often sought independent and upcoming talent to fill the market’s stalls, and forgave vendors’ unpaid rent for months and even years during the recession, according to the new Grand Central Market cookbook, which Yellin co-authored and released just last month.
Both Ira and Adele Yellin cared about the market greatly, and we can only hope the same love of its history and its vendors continues for another 100 years.