Honey Bee’s House of Breakfast – A Salvadoran Family Affair
by Julia Casillas
Honey Bee’s House of Breakfast
4715 W Adams Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90016
Honey Bee’s is the breakfast hot spot in West Adams where locals, and folks from beyond the neighborhood alike, come get their morning fix on. The family-owned restaurant is famous for its buttermilk pancakes and for its Salvadoran comfort food classics such as yuca frita, fried plantains, and pupusas, to name a few. The “El Clásico” combo boasts eggs, veggies, casamiento (rice and beans dish), Salvadoran hard cheese, fried plantains, avocados, and tortillas—a Salvadoran breakfast dream come true at only $9.50! While Rosa Gladys Hernández (who goes by Gladys) is the owner and lead chef, Honey Bee’s is decidedly a family endeavor. Together with her husband, Manuel Óscar Hernández, and their two adult children, Ronnie and Stanley Martínez, the four took a chance on their second restaurant venture. Their vision for Honey Bee’s tells a family story.
Gladys came to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1989 when she was 7 months pregnant with Ronnie. It was a hard decision but she left her then 1 1/2 year-old baby, Stanley, behind with family in El Salvador. From the moment Gladys arrived in Los Angeles she worked as a cook and since then she has been the principle chef at the two restaurants she has owned in Los Angeles. But Gladys was no novice cook, even then.
“Mom’s been cooking since she was 13 for a family of 12 and she cooked for everyone,” Ronnie said.
He also remembers how through her cooking she made magic during hard times.
“With one egg, some tortillas, and limón, five of us used to eat.”
In 2002, after more than a decade of working as a cook in other people’s restaurants, Gladys opened Los Cobanos on Sunset Blvd in Silverlake. At this restaurant named for the popular beach located in the Salvadoran department of Sonsonate, she shared the variety of Salvadoran food dishes she had perfected over the years. For 10 years, she and her family worked long hours devoting all of their energy and resources to making this restaurant succeed. Their labor gave fruit—Los Cobanos was well-loved by the community.
“People would line-up on the weekend in order to pick up their orders of pupusas,” Gladys recalled.
Unfortunately, as time went on the rent in Silverlake increased sharply. They were not making enough money to keep up with the rent hikes and in 2012 Los Cobanos closed down.
“Our last four years we were working for free.” Ronnie said. “The community counted on us for our food, so we kept making it. But it got to a point where financially it just didn’t make sense.”
Ronnie described how as a family they had to regroup and consider if they really wanted to go back into the restaurant business. Gladys said that making food was her calling. They would try something different but she had to continue. This time they would try a breakfast spot and they would open it in West Adams—the neighborhood they had called home for almost three decades.
Glady’s husband, who goes by ‘Óscar’ had been working as a truck driver for many years. Every morning he would stop by a house of breakfast in Commerce before going to work. An “all-American” breakfast was part of a daily routine that was comforting and helped him feel ready for his day. As a family, they decided that opening a breakfast spot in West Adams could be a success. To their knowledge there was no other spot in the area that focused on serving breakfast.
One night they stayed up late gathered around the dinner table intent on coming up with the name. Óscar, a country music aficionado, threw in “Honey Bee”—the name of his favorite Blake Shelton song. Everyone agreed that the name was catchy and complemented a breakfast establishment.
Pictured: Gladys and Ronnie.
For their first year, they served only U.S. American food at Honey Bee’s. Ronnie, however, felt the absence of the Central American cuisine they had been cooking for years and pleaded with his family to incorporate Salvadoran food into the menu. Initially, his family hesitated, concerned that the restaurant’s image would seem unfocused. Ronnie insisted that patrons would love the options. The Salvadoran food experiment menu proved to be a hit. When you walk into Honey Bee’s it is a pleasure to see the diversity of patrons eating a diversity of food options—often times at the same table.
They learned a lot about managing a restaurant from their experience at Los Cobanos. They implemented what worked and revamped what didn’t. Their commitment to great service and a welcoming guest experience remains a priority. But in terms of the long hours—at Los Cobanos they used to stay open from 11am-11pm—they decided that that had to go. Ronnie and Stanley were certain that strategic promotion would be wiser than working double-time. Stanley is in charge of promoting the business so that people beyond West Adams know that they exist. The family is proud of their high ratings on Yelp and feel that their many local regulars is a sign they got something right.
Ronnie feels proud of the diversity of the patrons he and his family welcome at Honey Bee’s.
“It’s what I always had in mind—a place where the local kids would feel welcome, where there wouldn’t be divisions between people of different races or age groups.”
He was pleasantly surprised when he started getting travelers from around the world. He felt humbled to know that the word was spreading to travelers visiting LA.
“We get to meet a lot of travelers. Why not give them a little bit of our world? It’s a blessing to meet people from everywhere. It pumps us to do what we do and see the whole world come through our little beehive.”
Gladys, Ronnie, Stanley, and the rest of the crew take pleasure in meeting their patrons and often take pictures of them next to the Honey Bee’s sign. Check out Honey Bee’s photos on their Instagram.
About the Author
Julia Casillas is a Salvi girl from El Monte who is forever falling for L.A.–its people, it’s urban landscapes, its truths that emerge over time. She is confident in the power of storytelling, passionate about justice for migrants, and down for the working class struggle. Julia is ever developing her internal GPS of good food spots in and around L.A.