Musso & Frank, Iconic Hollywood Restaurant, to Reopen Next Month thewrap.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thewrap.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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For Musso & Frank Grill, the venerable Hollywood institution, the past year has been one of uncertainty.
The restaurant has been closed since last March 15, when Mayor Eric Garcetti abruptly banned indoor dining or serving of alcohol, effective at midnight that night.
When conditions eased, the restaurant reopened in late June for four days, until the state banned indoor dining again.
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Musso tried a meals-to-go model for about three weeks, but it didn’t work.
“The pandemic has canceled what I do for a living,” street performer Mark Roman tells the
Hollywood Reporter. For six years, Roman portrayed Captain America and occasionally a
Reno 911-inspired character called “Lieutenant Frank” as one of the army of people who lived on tips from tourists by dressing up as superheroes, movie creatures, and other figments of the showbiz imagination. But now most of the strip that once welcomed 10 million visitors a year is boarded up, and Roman hasn’t busked since COVID-19 first hit Los Angeles.
To make ends meet Roman has tried working as an extra and making Cameo videos, with limited success.
Voters in line outside the shuttered Pantages Theatre on Nov. 3.
Hard-hit by the pandemic, the iconic street struggles amid a plunge in tourism and the months-long shuttering of theaters and other draws: I don’t know what we re going to do.
On a street typically lined with superheroes and Disney characters, Batman, with precious few tourists to greet, sits on a quiet corner doing crunches.
This is Hollywood Boulevard today, nine months into the pandemic-induced shutdown that has stripped the tourist destination of its usual 10 million annual visitors who clamor to take photos with costumed street performers and pose with their favorite celebrity s star.
Hollywood Restaurant Musso & Frank Grill Sets Up GoFundMe Account for Furloughed Employees
Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images
Along with donations, 25 percent of online retail sales will go toward the employee relief fund.
Donors like producer Vin Di Bona, Holland Taylor, Matthew Weiner and Bill Prady have given to the relief account, which is aiming to raise $100,000 to assist with health care and living expenses.
The latest L.A. County dining ban, due to alarming COVID-19 infection rates, has set off another wave of layoffs and furloughs among restaurants.
To help soften the financial burden for its staffers, industry staple Musso & Frank Grill has set up an employee relief fund via a GoFundMe. Money raised will be split, with 50 percent going toward ongoing health care/medical insurance and 50 percent for living expenses, for the legendary restaurant’s 84 employees who are currently furloughed.