Farewell to a Century: Taix French Restaurant Is Closing Its Doors on March 29
There are restaurants in Los Angeles, and then there are institutions. Taix French Restaurant, sitting at 1911 West Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, has always been the second thing. It opened in 1927. It has outlasted earthquakes, recessions, a pandemic, and nearly a century of change in one of the most restless cities on earth. On March 29, 2026, it will serve its last meal.
Taix Restaurant announced on Instagram that it will close on March 29, 2026, adding that it looks forward to "reopening after our rebuild, with hopes of welcoming you back by 2030." That promise of return brings some comfort. But it does not make the farewell any easier for the generations of Angelenos who grew up eating here, got engaged here, or simply showed up every Friday night for the steak frites and a cold glass of Bordeaux.
This is not just a restaurant closing. This is a piece of Los Angeles disappearing from the corner it has occupied for over six decades. And for a city that has lost an alarming number of its historic dining landmarks in recent years, the finality of March 29 hits differently.
Nearly 100 Years of History on One Corner of Sunset Boulevard
To understand what Los Angeles is losing, you need to go back to the beginning.
The Taix family came to Los Angeles from the Hautes-Alpes region of France in 1870. French immigrants represented 20% of the city's population in the middle of the 19th century, and the neighborhood that is today's Chinatown was home to a French hospital, French theater, and weekly French-language newspaper. Owners Marius Taix, Marius Taix Jr., and Louis Larquier ran the casual restaurant with French country meals served at long communal tables. The brick building had a tin ceiling, hanging chandeliers, and dark wood floors.
Owing to its location in the civic center, the restaurant was popular with government workers and reporters from the Los Angeles Times, and held a special table reserved for staff. And during Prohibition, the restaurant found creative ways to keep its regulars happy: the building at 321 Commercial Street near Union Station had originally housed a pharmacy belonging to Marius Taix, and during Prohibition the restaurant served "medicinal" wine to city officials and other select customers in a private dining room. Only in Los Angeles.
The original Taix closed in 1964 when it was purchased by the city of Los Angeles and replaced with a parking structure. Two years before the closure, Marius Taix Jr. and Louis Larquier opened a new Taix in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. That move, from downtown to Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, turned out to be the start of an entirely new chapter. The restaurant that opened in 1962 on that stretch of Sunset became the one Angelenos would come to love most deeply, and the one that will fall silent at the end of this month.
Echo Park's Anchor Restaurant and What It Meant to the Neighborhood
Ask anyone who has spent real time in Echo Park about Taix and you will not get a quick answer. You will get a story.
"When you live in Echo Park, you can't not know about Taix," said Andrew Garston, a longtime Echo Park resident and frequent customer. "I mean, it's the established great dining destination in the neighborhood."
That kind of relationship between a restaurant and a neighborhood is rare and takes decades to build. Taix built it by doing the same things, the same way, for the same people, year after year. The dining room never chased trends. The menu did not rotate with the seasons to impress food critics. The staff, many of whom have worked there for 20, 30, even 50 years, treated regulars like family because they were family.
"The wait staff, the bar, I mean, even right down to the valets. It's family and we're going to be sad," said Helen McDonagh, another longtime Echo Park resident.
That sentiment runs through every conversation about Taix right now. This is not the grief of losing a hip new restaurant that had a good run. This is the grief of losing a place that was woven into people's actual lives.
"The amount of stories that I've received, really heartfelt stories from people telling me about how they met here and their first Valentine's Day, or whatever it is, it's been just so heartfelt and touching," said co-owner Karri Taix.
First dates. Anniversaries. Family dinners after Dodger games. Holiday gatherings that started before some of the youngest guests were born. Taix was the kind of restaurant where you brought the people you loved and the occasion always felt right, no matter what it was.
Why Is Taix Closing? The Real Estate Story Behind the Farewell
The closure of Taix is not a story about a restaurant that ran out of customers or lost its way. It is a story about Los Angeles real estate, development pressure, and the financial realities facing even the most beloved institutions.
Fourth-generation owner Michael Taix sold the restaurant to real estate developers in 2019 who plan to replace it with a multi-story apartment building. Developer Holland Partner Group submitted plans to redevelop the restaurant, prompting the Friends of Taix to submit a Historic-Cultural Monument nomination in an effort to save the historic site.
Preservation advocates, the LA Conservancy, and the Friends of Taix fought hard to protect the building. The nomination was recommended for approval by the Cultural Heritage Commission, which would have afforded protections to the building. Unfortunately, then-Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell intervened when the nomination advanced to the Planning and Land Use Management committee and City Council, requesting that the designation apply only to two exterior signs.
The result is an HCM designation that is no more than architectural salvage, not including the Taix building itself. In practical terms, only the iconic neon "Taix" and "Cocktails" signs outside and the cherrywood bar top from the lounge will survive the demolition. The building itself will come down.
Holland Partner Group plans to build a six-story complex with 166 units of housing, 24 units reserved for low-income residents, 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 220 automobile parking spaces.
Michael Taix, who flew back to Los Angeles from Utah to personally break the news to his staff, was clear-eyed about what happened and why. The owners said they sold the property out of financial necessity but are hopeful Taix will reopen within the new structure in about three to four years. "There's also hope," he told reporters, "and we're looking forward to trying to establish ourselves again when this building is completed as the keystone retail at this exact location."
That is a real promise and worth holding onto. But between now and 2030, there will be years without Taix on Sunset Boulevard, and that absence will be felt.
What to Order Before March 29: The Dishes That Define Taix
If you have never been to Taix, or if you have not been in a while, there are a few things you absolutely need to order before the lights go out on March 29.
Steak Frites
Taix is known as one of the places in Los Angeles with the best steak frites. The peppercorn-sauced version, served with crispy fries that hold their own against anything in this city, is the dish most people point to when they describe what Taix does best. It is French comfort food executed with total confidence. Order it.
French Onion Soup
The baked French onion soup at Taix is the kind of dish that makes you understand why French cuisine became a global benchmark. A deep, properly caramelized broth, a crouton soaked through with flavor, and a layer of melted gruyère that pulls away in long strings. It is $13 and worth every cent.
Frog Legs Provencal
This is the dish that separates Taix from every other French restaurant in Los Angeles. The frog legs are one of the favorites among longtime regulars, consistent and delicious in the way only a kitchen that has been making the same dish for decades can be. If you have never tried frog legs, Taix is the right place to start.
Trout Almondine
A dish that barely exists on Los Angeles menus anymore, the trout almondine at Taix is a reminder of why classic French preparations endure. Delicate fish, browned butter, toasted almonds. Simple and honest.
Coq Au Vin on Sundays
The slow-braised chicken in red wine, served with your choice of soup or salad, has become something of a Sunday ritual for regular Taix guests. At $23 it is one of the great dining deals still operating in Los Angeles.
The 321 Lounge
Before or after dinner, the lounge is essential. The 321 Lounge is named for the restaurant's original address at 321 Commercial Street in Los Angeles. It has live music, a long bar, and the kind of atmosphere that makes you feel like you have stepped into an older, slower version of the city. On a Friday night it is one of the great rooms in Los Angeles.
The Battle to Save the Building: What Preservation Advocates Fought For
The fight to preserve Taix was one of the more heartbreaking episodes in recent Los Angeles preservation history, not because it was poorly organized, but because it came so close to succeeding.
Despite the valiant efforts of the Friends of Taix to designate the restaurant as a Historic-Cultural Monument, and the full support of the LA Conservancy, the redevelopment housing project has unfortunately been approved and signed off by the City.
Preservationists argued, reasonably, that Taix represented exactly the kind of community anchor that historic landmark protections were designed to protect. The building had the architectural history. The cultural significance was well-documented. The community support was clear and vocal.
On January 26, 2022, the Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of the recommendation to change the scope of the Historic-Cultural Monument to just two exterior signs and a wood bar top. That outcome, protecting objects rather than the place itself, is a painful symbol of how development pressure can overwhelm even the most well-supported preservation efforts in this city.
The LA Conservancy did not give up without a fight. In statements released over several years, the organization made the case that other historic resources are being retained through full or partial preservation approaches by integrating compatible surrounding infill construction, and the same was possible at Taix. The city disagreed, and the decision stands.
Living on Borrowed Time: How Taix Stayed Open as Long as It Did
One of the more moving details in the Taix story is how long the restaurant managed to hold on after the sale.
In a follow-up Instagram post shortly after the closure was announced, Taix acknowledged that for the past couple of years, the restaurant has been living on borrowed time. "Through perseverance, sacrifice, and the extraordinary kindness of the developers, we were able to continue operating in Echo Park for nearly a decade extra so Taix could remain part of this neighborhood," the post said.
Think about what that means. The property sold in 2019. The restaurant is closing in 2026. That is seven years of Taix serving French onion soup and steak frites on a Sunset Boulevard corner that was already spoken for. Seven years of first dates and birthday dinners and after-Dodger-game celebrations that would not have happened if the timeline had moved faster.
"They knew the end was coming, but they didn't know when," said Michael Taix, of his staff. "There is some sadness, for sure."
For a staff where many employees have given decades of their working lives to this restaurant, the sadness is real and earned. Restaurants like Taix run on human continuity, on the institutional knowledge of a waiter who has been serving the same table for 30 years, on the muscle memory of a kitchen that has made the same coq au vin every Sunday since before some of its guests were born. When Taix closes, all of that disperses.
The Bigger Picture: LA's Vanishing Restaurant Institutions
Taix does not close in a vacuum. Hundreds of beloved establishments have closed in recent years, and sustaining a nearly century-old institution is no small task. The restaurant pointed that out itself, and it is worth sitting with.
Los Angeles has lost a number of its oldest, most storied restaurants in recent years. The economic pressures of the pandemic, rising rents, and ongoing development across the city have accelerated closures that might otherwise have been decades away. When a restaurant that has survived 99 years cannot make it to its centennial without being demolished for apartments, it says something about the conditions facing historic businesses in this city right now.
The Taix situation is particularly pointed because the loss is not about failure. The food was still good. The regulars were still coming. The staff was still showing up. The restaurant closed because the land it sat on became more valuable than the history built on top of it, and the legal tools designed to prevent exactly that outcome were not applied with the force they deserved.
That is worth naming clearly, even as we look forward to the eventual return.
What Comes Next: The Hope of a Rebuilt Taix by 2030
The owners of Taix have been consistent and sincere about their intention to return. Owner Michael Taix said, "There's also hope and we're looking forward to trying to establish ourselves again when this building is completed as the keystone retail at this exact location."
The Holland Partner Group development will include 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and the plan is for a rebuilt Taix to occupy that space as what Michael Taix described as the "keystone retail" of the new complex. The iconic neon signs will be preserved and will presumably hang again above whatever new version of Taix occupies that corner of Sunset Boulevard.
Whether the rebuilt Taix can recapture what the current one has is an open question. Restaurants are not just menus and recipes. They are accumulated atmosphere, the specific way light falls through a certain window at a certain hour, the way a room sounds when it is full of people who have been coming for years. Those things cannot be boxed up and reinstalled in a new building.
But the alternative, no Taix at all, is worse. And the promise of 2030, however uncertain, is something to hold onto as March 29 approaches.
How to Say Goodbye: Getting a Reservation Before the Last Night
Taix is open Wednesday through Sunday from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. through March 29. The restaurant is at 1911 West Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, and you can reach them at 213-484-1265 or by email at info@taixfrench.com.
Reservations are filling up fast. If you want to make it before the doors close, book as early as you can. Walk-ins are possible but not guaranteed this close to the end.
And if you have not been before, go. Order the steak frites. Have the French onion soup. Sit in the 321 Lounge and listen to live music on a Friday night. Order the frog legs even if they sound unfamiliar. Let the room do what it has done for nearly a century, which is make you feel like you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Los Angeles will not have another Taix for at least four years, and when it returns it will be something new, even if it carries the same name and the same neon signs. The version that has existed since 1927, the one built by French immigrants, run by four generations of the same family, and kept alive by decades of loyal Angelenos, closes on March 29.
Go say goodbye. It earned it.
Taix French Restaurant is at 1911 West Sunset Blvd, Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA 90026. Final night of service is Saturday, March 29, 2026. Call 213-484-1265 or email info@taixfrench.com for reservations.
