‘This Counts’: Michael Cimarusti on Connie and Ted’s closing and the state of restaurants

In 2013, eight years after opening Providence, which earned its third Michelin star last year, chef Michael Cimarusti opened Connie & Ted’s with the idea of ​​giving Los Angeles an easy and affordable way to taste his cooking and seafood. A taste of New England in West Hollywood, it quickly became known for fried clams and chowder reminiscent of Cimarusti’s Rhode Island childhood and stuffed lobster rolls filled with lobster that has never been frozen.

But on July 1, after years of ups, downs and financial struggles, Connie and Ted’s will close.

Like many other LA restaurateurs, Cimarusti along with his wife and business partner, Crisi Echiverri, cited inflation and high labor costs in West Hollywood, one of the highest in the country at $20.25 for non-hotel workers. But the biggest thing, Cimarusti said, is the drop in sales. The pandemic, followed by the entertainment industry strikes of 2023 and the fires of 2025 led to long-term business losses.

“I wanted to be able to recreate that food here in Los Angeles and do it the right way, without preservatives, and making everything from scratch, and using the best quality ingredients we can buy,” Cimarusti said. “I feel like that food is good for me.”

After a long time, he added, Los Angeles agreed.

The restaurant, named after Cimarusti’s grandparents – Constance and Edward – was opened to fans, a surprise and “hot oyster shucking.” It has appeared on many LA Times 101 lists over the years and specializes in a pre-World War II “no-cuts” kind of philosophy, with everything made from scratch, including its breads and crackers. New England-style lobster rolls weren’t always plentiful in Los Angeles, and Connie and Ted’s served up some of the best and most consistent lobster, delivered fresh from Gloucester, Mass., on fluffy, griddled rolls.

The lobster roll, available two ways, is a signature dish at Connie & Ted’s.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

It also served some of the region’s specialties, such as clam cakes from a handwritten recipe her grandmother found on the back of a fish store receipt. During Cimarusti’s childhood summers at Scarborough State Beach in Narragansett, RI, she would walk to a small shack and buy half a dozen of them in a brown paper bag, which she shared with her sister on the sand. (“That’s the only thing missing from Connie’s clam cake recipe,” says Cimarusti. “There’s no sand.”)

The restaurant, led by executive chef and Providence alum Sam Baxter, is “not a Rhode Island shack chef’s interpretation or a New England seafood-themed fantasy,” as Jonathan Gold wrote in 2013, adding, “there may be a restaurant in Los Angeles that treats its oysters with more respect.”

Sam Baxter, an alum of LA’s Providence, is the executive chef at Michael Cimarusti’s Connie and Ted in West Hollywood.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Cimarusti said he never imagined how successful this restaurant would be. Some customers still eat there once or twice each week.

“It’s a restaurant that we’ve put a lot of work into, a lot of money into, and it’s been successful for a long time,” Cimarusti said, adding of the decision to close: “We had no choice.”

To build it they transformed the long-time Silver Spoon restaurant into their modern seafood shack, along with their business partners Donato Poto, Amy Specter Nickoloff and Craig Nickoloff. They fixed the plumbing and electrical in the 1930 building, added a green area, a wave-like wood deck and a fish tank, and decorated the dining room with lobster traps, rolled fish and other aquatic decorations.

In the winter, as they begin to think about closing the restaurant, they are looking for a buyer but they still hope to succeed. Then, in the spring, they decided to call it quits.

“People eat differently now,” Echiverri said. “Now, instead of going to a mid-priced restaurant like Connie & Ted’s, they’ll just order in.”

Connie & Ted’s in October 2020, when the restaurant expands into the parking lot to accommodate outside food during the pandemic.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Providence, despite being 21 years old, is still booked regularly. But in “mid-range restaurants” — between fast-casual places without extensive table service and high-end tasting menus — restaurants tend to fill thin margins with volume. Otherwise, they are unstable.

Many notable LA restaurants have already closed within the first five months of the year, even before the end of May, including Cole’s, Socalo, Taix, DTLA Cheese, Rao’s and the Grand Central Market location of Fat & Flour.

“This is the number we see here in Los Angeles,” Cimarusti said.

Cimarusti said it’s becoming increasingly difficult to charge prices at his casual restaurant that reflect the true cost of his burgers and lobster rolls.

Seafood, if caught wild, prices vary due to water temperature, spawning, overfishing and other factors. When Connie and Ted’s first opened, lobsters would cost the restaurant $4 or $5 per pound during the summer months, resulting in lobster rolls selling for around $25. Now those same lobsters cost more than $15 a pound — more than triple the original cost, but Cimarusti said he can’t charge three times as much for a $75 lobster roll. The current price is $39.

One night in late May the dining room was full. Some considered themselves ordinary; some hadn’t visited in years but wanted to say goodbye before July 1. Groups of waiting patrons spilled from porch to porch.

Cimarusti and Echiverri say they are grateful for the rush of visitors since the closure was announced, but they hope to see tourism spread by June – faster than the news.

Crisi Echiverri, center, pictured with Gary Menes, right, and Andre Guerrero for a 2010 feature on Filipino chefs in Los Angeles.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

On June 18, Cimarusti will cook alongside Baxter for One Last Cast, a sold-out $175 dinner where they’ll serve some of the restaurant’s original dishes, like Angels on Horseback: a vintage-cookbook recipe that involves wrapping oysters in bacon, grilling them and eating them on toast with Champagne beurre.

As Echiverri put it, “We’re going to finish strong.”

Connie & Ted’s is located at 8171 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, and is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 9:30 pm; Friday and Saturday from 11:30 am to 3 pm and from 5 to 10 pm; and Sunday from 11:30 am to 3 pm and from 5 to 9 pm through July 1.