The Greyhound Bar & Grill in Highland Park Vandalized With a Swastika, Jewish Co-Owners ‘Not Tolerating’ It

[dropcap size=big]L.A.[/dropcap] Taco has been notified of an anti-semitic act of vandalism that occurred last Thursday night at The Greyhound Bar & Grill in Highland Park. According to co-owner Mateo Glassman, a “fairly large swastika” was carved into the wall in the men’s bathroom.

The restaurant posted about it on both their Facebook and Instagram accounts the following day and addressed the situation head-on with their loyal customers. 

The Greyhound was among the first of the new-school businesses to open on the Figueroa Street side of Highland Park in 2014, replacing a pupusa shop. The owners are Mateo Glassman (formerly of Father’s Office), Ryan Julio, and James Bygrave along with his wife Andrea Bygrave. Since then, they have earned the respect of the neighborhood with their Happy Hour “Blue Hour” promotion and a “90042uesdays” special on Tuesday nights where they offer a 20 percent discount to residents who live in the 90042 zip code. 

“We are quite seriously a family and I’m not going to let some coward drawing pictures in the bathroom get in the way of our mission,” Glassman informs L.A. Taco via an email. He goes on, “We pride ourselves on diversity, and not just racial or religious but gender, socio-economic, education, and diversity of thought. Above beer and wings and pizza and Dodgers, our number one product is community.” 

Glassman confirms to L.A. Taco that in their five and a half year run in Highland Park, they’ve “never, ever, ever” had any issues like this and that they have “no reason to believe that at this point this wasn’t an isolated idiot and not a pattern of hate and intolerance.” So far, they don’t have any suspects. 

 

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Last night, a coward carved an anti-semitic, hateful symbol into the our wall. While we our doing our best to repair the symbol as swiftly as possible, we thought it might be a good idea to first touch base with this community that we care about so much. First off, we should mention that this business was founded by two people and color and two Jewish people, as was @etahlp. We have no choice but to view this symbol as a direct weapon of hate towards both our business and our community. We are saddened by this attack even as hate and intolerance has become unfortunately commonplace in our culture. But second, and perhaps more importantly, we wanted to take this moment to remind everyone in this community that we will not tolerate any hate, judgement, or prejudice in either of our businesses. We are beyond proud of the community we’re lucky enough to be a part of. Our staff and clientele are a beautiful reflection of the diversity and acceptance of the people of Highland Park. When we opened this bar five-and-a-half years ago, our primary goal was always to create a community center where people from every race, religion, gender, socio-economic bracket, and education level can come and enjoy this space. And from Day One, this community has given us that love right back. While we know that hate and intolerance lives everywhere, including our community, we are here to remind you that at The Greyhound and ETA, all are welcome. You and your friends and your family and anyone else that you love will always be welcome and made to feel safe and unjudged and accepted as a part of our family. And know that we will simply not have any space for hate or intolerance. None. We love you, Highland Park. Also, Dodgers start at 4 today…

A post shared by The Greyhound Bar & Grill (@thegreyhoundla) on Aug 16, 2019 at 11:06am PDT

Nonetheless, Glassman is not taking it lightly. “I think it’s worth saying that as a Jewish business owner, I don’t view this as an attack on me or my family personally, but an attack on the entire community of Highland Park.” He shares that The Greyhound prides themselves in most of their customers being regulars who return often. 

He informs L.A. Taco that their “handyman has been busy all weekend” and he expects to finish fixing it today.

“I have no doubt, I repeat, no doubt, that we as a community are much bigger than this and will have no problem picking each other up and taking care of each other long after this image has been painted over.”