Restaurateur Jay Handal, a Westside gadfly and the longtime president of the Greater West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, is closing his San Gennaro restaurant in Culver City and bowing out of the city’s Downtown Business Association, which he helped create.
Handal is widely credited as an early advocate of resurrecting downtown Culver City by implementing a Business Improvement District in the late 1990s. The area near Culver and Venice boulevards has been transformed into a walking corridor of trendy shops and restaurants including Ford’s Filling Station, owned by Chef Benjamin Ford, the son of actor Harrison Ford.
But Handal appears to have been the victim of his own success.
New restaurants that flooded the area and rising rents forced Handel to close his San Gennaro in Culver City, just months after he filed a Chapter 11 reorganization on San Gennaro Caf & #233; in Brentwood.
Two years ago, Handal raised the ire of many businesses when he tried to boost the membership of the West L.A. chamber by using the mailing lists of the chambers in Santa Monica and Culver City in a marketing campaign. Critics complained he was trying to boost the West L.A. group’s membership by poaching members from other chambers.
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When Miki Jordan was growing up in Covina as the oldest of seven children, she spent every holiday on Skid Row serving food to the homeless. It was her family’s profession.
Jordan’s father, a minister, founded Fred Jordan Missions, a non-profit that opened its doors in 1944. Her mother, Willie Jordan, now runs the mission, which has provided food and assistance to thousands of families and children on Skid Row. Jordan continued in the same vein, serving for the past 14 years as president and chief executive of Para Los Ninos, the Los Angeles non-profit agency that helps children and families get out of poverty.
Now she is taking the reins of Junior Blind of America from departing CEO Robert Ralls, who has led the Los Angeles non-profit for 20 years.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving Para Los Ninos, but then I was asked to consider Junior Blind and when I saw the children who had multiple disabilities, I was so touched, that I had to take the job,” she said.
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The U.S. Olympic Committee, which picked Los Angeles as one of five final cities for a possible bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, will meet May 18 with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth, who chaired the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. After the meetings, the USOC will decide whether it will proceed with a bid, though no formal timetable has been set for the decision.
Staff reporter Kate Berry can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 228, or by e-mail at
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