By Paul Rosenbluh was in Vancouver, Washington, finalizing a restaurant purchase when he learned that his existing eatery in Altadena, California, had been incinerated.
He and his wife, Monique King, had run Fox’s Restaurant, a “gem on the hill” of the Los Angeles-area community, since 2017. The diner was a local staple dating back to 1955, and Rosenbluh first laid eyes on its charred husk this week through a Facebook video that was sent to him after the Eaton Fire swept through the area.
Fox’s Restaurant co-owners Paul Rosenbluh and Monique King lost the iconic Altadena, Calif., diner to the Eaton Fire last week.Paul Yem for NBC News
“I don’t want to say [we’re] exchanging one restaurant for another, but that’s kind of how it’s going to transpire,” Rosenbluh recalled thinking on the 14-hour drive back to Altadena. “We literally just closed escrow on Tuesday when all this stuff started to go down.”
He’s one of many small-business owners across greater Los Angeles who are just beginning to reckon with the devastating wildfires that have raged across the region, turning decades of history and years of entrepreneurial effort to ashes within hours.
