Taix French Restaurant Celebrates 90th Anniversary With 90 Cent Dinner
Taix French Restaurant, Los Angeles oldest family owned and operated French country restaurant, celebrated its 90th anniversary with its traditional “cent” roast chicken dinner. On Sunday, October 8, 2017 from 4 p.m .to 8 p.m., customers, old and new, can celebrate with a 90-cent “Taix” Roast Chicken dinner special.
The menu for the evening’s anniversary hours will be limited to soup de jour, salad and the “Taix” Roast Chicken with au jus—a classic French country chicken dinner introduced by Marius Taix Jr. in 1927. (Dishes will only be 90 cents each.) Full service bar available; reservations will not be accepted and diners will be seated on a first come, first serve basis.
The Taix Family is the third and fourth generation of sheepherders and bakers from the “Hautes-Alpes” in southeastern France that moved to Los Angeles around 1870. In 1912 Marius Taix Sr. built a hotel called the Champ d’Or in downtown Los Angeles’ French quarter, which was located on 321 Commercial Street, and included a hotel restaurant subleased to a tenant, which was relinquished to the Taix’s when the restaurant was forbidden to serve alcohol during the prohibition period.
In 1927, Marius Taix Jr. opened Les Freres Taix French restaurant within the hotel, serving chicken dinners for 50 cents at long “family-style” tables. Diners could choose private booth service for an extra quarter. Taix’s novel food, unique service and affordable prices have made it a Los Angeles institution.
In 1962, the present location, located on Sunset Boulevard, east of Hollywood in Echo Park, opened and was owned and operated by Raymond and Pierre Taix, sons of Marius Taix Jr., and uncles John Narp and Louis Sangouard. Taix remained true to its French roots until the 1970s, when the restaurant experimented with a continental-themed menu. In the mid 80s, Michael Taix, son of Raymond Taix, began contributing to the management of the restaurant, and through time, became owner operator.
Michael Taix transformed the continental era back to Taix’s original French roots, and has been successful at attracting a wide-range of customers from long-time customers and business executives from 11:30 a.m. into happy hour at 5 p.m., to families during dinner hours, and local Gen-X and Gen Y hipsters into the late night menu, which is served in the restaurant’s lounge from 11p.m. to 1 p.m.
“The resurgence of Echo Park in the 2000s really helped extend our reach beyond locals to attract the younger, indie music crowd,” said Michael Taix, Owner, Taix French Restaurant. “As one of the eastern outposts of Los Angeles’ music scene, which included The Echo, Echoplex and Spaceland, we saw an uptick in customers who would travel from all over the greater Los Angeles area, watch a music show and have drinks before or after.. At the time we didn’t serve dinner after 10 p.m.. Customers would leaver our lounge at 10 p.m. to find other late-night eats and I saw an opportunity. That’s when I created the late night menu that is now available from 10 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Most recently, Mike teamed up with French Chef Laurent Quenioux, aka “LQ,” who was one of the founders of the L.A. French scene in the 1980s, and founded 7th street bistro, serving groundbreaking French Nouvelle California cuisine. Together, Mike and LQ revisit Taix’s menu and fine tune dishes for micro improvements.
“People say they don’t want change, but deep down inside they always appreciate something new that’s still presented in an old school manner,” said Mike. “Of late, I’ve worked hard to bring back traditional, old country French cuisine–lots of classic game fare such as beef tongue, oxtail, and lamb shanks. In fact, we were one of the first in town to serve short ribs in 1980. I call it ‘imperceptible change,’ where even the most frequent patron wouldn’t notice a difference, but the change is in there just enough to keep them coming back for more.”
