A week and a half before Jewel, a mostly plant-based restaurant on the border of Silver Lake and Virgil Village, is slated to close permanently, its owner Sharky McGee is the only person working the floor. Sporting a tightly buzzed head, dark wash Levi’s, and a black T-shirt, she flits from behind the bar making coffee to the outdoor patio, and back in to take orders at the door as a steady stream of customers flows in. Just a day prior, on June 19, she suddenly announced that she would be closing the restaurant on June 30 via Instagram. McGee opened Jewel in 2018 with her now ex-wife and business partner, Jasmine Shimoda — its closure will end a six-and-a-half-year run. In the post, she wrote that recent years had presented “numerous unforeseen challenges, both personal and professional.”
Minutes after the restaurant opens at 11 a.m., McGee puts out place settings at the royal blue curved booth in the corner for Vincent Brook and his wife Karen who have been coming to the restaurant since 2018. Outside, she sets up a table for a local Torah study group that meets at the restaurant regularly. As the sun approaches its peak, not even the bright rays can clear out the feeling of an imminent ending that hangs over the dining room. It’s hard to ignore that many are here to pay their respects to a place that has become a home of sorts to them over the years.
Vincent remembers his first time at Jewel, calling it “love at first sight.” He’s lived in Silver Lake for 46 years — 44 of them spent in the same house just a few blocks away from the restaurant. At first, he and Karen came for the food, but as they got to know McGee and Shimoda, along with the rest of the staff, they started coming back for the people. “Sharky made us Godparents,” Karen says. “We don’t have children, so this was our family,” Vincent adds. Every time someone walks by, Vincent asks them if they know the restaurant is closing. Some are caught off guard, while most are there for that very reason.
By early afternoon, longtime friends of McGee who work other jobs in the service industry start to run plates and make coffee for guests to keep service afloat. The Torah study group has come and gone, but for a Thursday afternoon, Jewel is unmistakably busy. As the Brooks head out, they promise to see McGee again on Saturday for their normal slot. Tables of people who had never met before start striking up conversations with each other. One guest recounted a tale of walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain to his neighbor before planning a return trip to Jewel the next day after he found out it was closing. He talked about the significance of walking, and how much he will miss being able to just stroll through the doorway of the restaurant to an awaiting table and familiar meal. McGee calls the experience of watching friends show up to help “humbling” before going on to say that after knowing each other for years they have a “very genuine care and concern for each other’s well-being.”
For McGee, Jewel’s closure has been coming for some time. After Shimoda departed the business in 2021, she took over the kitchen with no experience and has been stretched thin for years. The inconsistent flow of customers became unsustainable, and the pandemic amplified the challenging situation. In the years since, the restaurant encountered staffing shortages and sharply rising costs of doing business, including higher rent.
The loss of Jewel is difficult for a neighborhood that has seen such an influx of recent change, and its closing comes at a complicated time. The restaurant sits right on Hoover, the street that sets the border between Silver Lake and Virgil Village. The first few months of 2024 saw closures in Silver Lake including Bar Moruno, El Cochinito, Bolita, Cafe Tropical, and Las Glorias Del Buen Comer, though Cafe Tropical later reopened under new ownership.
The last decade has also seen rapid change for Virgil Village with the arrival of restaurants and bars like Melody, Ken’s Ramen, KinKan, Voodoo Vino, and Budonoki — some have lasted the years since, while others only held a short tenure in the neighborhood. While the openings have brought new dining options to the neighborhood, they’ve also displaced longstanding restaurants and by way of the rising cost of living, the residents themselves. In an interview with L.A. Taco, journalist Samanta Helou Hernandez said of the changes that some older residents reacted positively since they witnessed less crime, but then started to watch their friends and family get priced out from living there.
From her restaurant on Hoover, McGee has watched the changes happen. “There’s a lot of new and shiny objects out there that I personally do not have the capacity, financially or emotionally or whatnot, to be able to compete,” she says. “And that’s fine. I’m fine. I’m at peace with that. I’m happy with what I’ve achieved.”
Reflecting on the early days of the restaurant, McGee says that she and Shimoda funded its opening off of credit cards. In recent years, as rents have risen and the makeup of the neighborhood has changed, she’s also seen Jewel become a destination restaurant for special occasions and noticed that guests for the most part, don’t have the same financial flexibility they enjoyed before the pandemic.
McGee isn’t sure what’s next for her. She’s considering some work in consulting and has been approached with other promising opportunities, but is also waiting to see what the universe brings. But first, she plans to rest after the six-and-a-half-year grueling marathon of running a restaurant. “Ultimately, I’m tired, and I would like to be able to just not be as stressed as I have been for the last however many years,” McGee says.
Though Jewel won’t live on for much longer, the memories made at this beloved neighborhood staple will. It has become a refuge for regulars, especially those that were queer or looking for community. “This is what the future could be like,” Karen says mournfully before Vincent finishes her sentence saying, “This gave me hope for the future.”
Jewel’s spot on Hoover won’t sit empty for long though. Beautiful Day, a La Quinta-based breakfast restaurant, is slated to move in on July 3, just days after Jewel closes.
Jewel is located at 654 N. Hoover Street, Los Angeles, CA 90004. Its last day open will be on June 30.