Larchmont Village had three events and one storefront closing inside twelve days this September, and the same handful of names show up in almost all of them. Patti Carroll ran the raffle at a food fundraiser on September 15. Four days later, Romi Cortier closed the boulevard for a car show that Carroll's raffle had, in a small way, already helped fund the year before. The Larchmont United Neighborhood Association sponsored that car show, then co-hosted a Zoom call with two mayoral candidates five days after that. None of this is coordinated by the city. It runs on a bench of maybe a dozen people and three neighborhood associations who show up for every item on the calendar, whether it's food, cars, politics, or a lease.
The 34th Taste of Larchmont
On the evening of September 14, hundreds of residents walked Larchmont Boulevard for the 34th annual Taste of Larchmont, a fundraiser that has run long enough to outlast several of the restaurants now pouring for it. This year's beneficiary was Hope-Net, which operates twelve food pantries across the Mid-City area. Mayor Karen Bass, whose official residence sits in nearby Windsor Square, attended alongside CD13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, and the two of them pulled the winning raffle tickets for prizes donated by Chevalier's Books and other local supporters.
The eateries pouring that night read like a walking map of the boulevard: Bacio di Latte, Cookbook Market, Descanso Restaurant, El Cholo at the Beverly and Larchmont corner, Esco's Pizza, Go Greek Yogurt, Great White, Kiku Sushi, La Bettola Di Terroni, Larchmont Village Wine and Cheese, and Le Pain Quotidien. Raffle prizes came from Flicka, Color Me Mine, The Ebell of Los Angeles, Diptyque, Mark Edwards Skin Care, and the Wilshire Rotary Club, among others.
Steve Tator, a 30-year veteran volunteer who organizes the participating restaurants, noticed something different this year.
"We noticed a lot more baby strollers this year than ever before. It feels like a new generation of residents who didn't know much about it wanted to experience something more about Larchmont."
That single observation matters more than the guest list. Taste of Larchmont has been run by the same organizing committee for decades, including Laurie Brown, Bob Day, Jane Gilman, and Dorothy Schouten alongside Carroll and Tator. A fundraiser that old surviving into a new generation of stroller-pushing attendees is not automatic. Someone has to keep showing up to run it.
Four Days Later, Same Volunteers, Different Asphalt
On September 19, the 500 block of North Larchmont closed to traffic for Cars Under the Stars, the Larchmont Boulevard Association's first-ever car show, staged in partnership with the Porsche Club of America-Los Angeles. More than 60 vintage and exotic Porsches lined the street between Clinton and Rosewood while the Hollywood Sign came into view at dusk and the bistro lights installed along the boulevard last December switched on.
The idea belongs to Romi Cortier, the volunteer president of the Larchmont Boulevard Association, who has watched that same dusk view of the Hollywood Sign from his salon on Larchmont for more than three decades. He connected with Lisa Balazs, a garden designer who owns Virgo Designs & Landscaping and had already been helping the LBA revamp the boulevard's medians and parking lot plantings. Balazs is also a vintage Porsche owner who formed the Ladies & Porsches chapter of the Porsche Club of America-Los Angeles, and her landscaping crew cleared and cleaned the median where the cars were staged.
Cortier described the night's outcome afterward:
"It's like throwing a rock into a pond and watching it ripple out. It's remarkable and feels so great."
Sponsors included Romi Cortier Design, Virgo Design & Landscaping, Larchmont Jewelers, the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Association, and Drive Toward a Cure, a nonprofit funding Parkinson's disease research. Councilmember Soto-Martinez showed up again, this time with CD13 District Deputy Mark Fuentes. Proceeds go toward the LBA's ongoing beautification projects, the same fund that paid for the bistro lights that made the whole evening's signature photograph possible in the first place.
A Zoom Call That Drew 200 Neighbors
Five days after the car show, on September 24, three neighborhood groups traded cars for candidates. The Hancock Park Homeowners Association, the Larchmont United Neighborhood Association, and the Windsor Square Association co-hosted a Zoom election forum moderated by Nick Patsaouras, a longtime resident and civic figure who ran for mayor himself back in 1993. Over five back-to-back half-hour sessions, close to 200 neighbors logged in to hear from mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, City Attorney candidate John McKinney, and contenders for State Senate District 26.
Organizers said they wanted a format that moved past talking points and gave residents real context before filling out a ballot. It's the same organizational muscle that runs Taste of Larchmont and Cars Under the Stars, redirected toward a Zoom link instead of a sidewalk. LUNA in particular threads through both the car show sponsorship and the election forum, which is not a coincidence so much as a pattern.
The Ice Cream Shop That Didn't Make October
While the boulevard's civic calendar was running its usual course, its retail map shifted too. Jeni's Ice Cream closed its scoop shop at 123 N Larchmont Boulevard on September 27, ending a run that began in 2017 as the company's third Los Angeles location. Founder Jeni Britton attended that original grand opening. A company spokesperson said the closure came at the end of the lease, and that Jeni's had valued nearly a decade partnering with neighborhood schools and nonprofits on ice cream socials.
Moving into the space is Chamberlain Coffee, the brand founded by Emma Chamberlain. This will be the company's third Los Angeles-area location, following Century City and Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, with an opening expected sometime next year. One tenant with a decade of neighborhood ice cream socials hands the corner to a newer name with two other LA storefronts already open. The boulevard keeps its foot traffic. The name on the awning changes.
What the Overlap Actually Means
Line up the month and the same short list of people keeps reappearing. Cortier organizes the car show and donates raffle items to the food fundraiser. Balazs' landscaping company maintains the medians that made the car show's signature photo possible. LUNA sponsors the Porsche show and co-hosts the election forum. Soto-Martinez shows up at both the fundraiser and the car show. Jane Gilman, who co-founded both the Larchmont Chronicle and the Larchmont Family Fair, sits on the Taste of Larchmont organizing committee too.
None of this is run by a professional events company or a city department. It is a rotating cast of resident volunteers and three neighborhood associations who treat the boulevard's calendar as their own project, one fundraiser, one car show, and one election forum at a time. The next stop on that calendar is the 61st annual Larchmont Family Fair on October 25, from noon to 5 p.m., with children's rides, food, community booths, contests, and live music returning to the boulevard. Given who has run every other event this fall, it's a safe bet the same names will be behind the folding tables.
If you're already walking this stretch of Larchmont on a Wednesday market afternoon or a Saturday car show evening, you've been watching this pattern longer than any headline could explain it. Jonathan Ruiz keeps an eye on what's actually changing along this boulevard, storefront by storefront and volunteer by volunteer, for anyone who wants the context behind what they're seeing on their own walk to dinner.
