If there's one thing you can count on besides taxes and death, it's a trend story from The New York Times about bougie Los Angeles. The latest one is “How Erewhon Became L.A.’s Hottest Hangout”:
Once health food stores were the domain of Birkenstock-clad hippies shoveling granola from a bulk bin. Now Birkenstocks are chic, tie-dye is regularly seen on catwalks and health food stores, too, have experienced a comeuppance. “It’s a paradox for a health food store to be cool,” said Jason Widener, a vice president at Erewhon.
Admittedly, the photographs from Michelle Groskopf are gorgeous.
For an earlier, more nuanced take that frames Erewhon's celebrity and success in the doom palace that is gentrification, there's Jeff Weiss in Los Angeles Magazine: “Is Erewhon’s Arrival in Silver Lake the Final Nail in the Gentrifying Neighborhood’s Coffin?”
Neighborhoods never die a corporeal death. They slowly atrophy and mutate, leaving behind a husk of corporate salad chains and hemp-latte bazaars. In that sense, Silver Lake has been slipping into a coma for years. But the appearance of the exorbitantly priced paleo palace might be the final gasp of the former bohemian refuge.