A fire broke out Tuesday night inside a long-abandoned Denny's restaurant on South Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, sending crews rushing in with a rescue profile in case anyone was trapped inside the empty building. Firefighters knocked the blaze down within 31 minutes, and searches of the one-story structure turned up no victims.
Crews Arrive to Fire Showing at Vacant Restaurant
The Los Angeles Fire Department logged the structure fire at 635 S. Vermont Avenue at 9:17 p.m., according to LAFD alerts. First-arriving firefighters found “a 1 story commercial abandoned previous restaurant with fire showing,” per the department's incident log, and initially worked with a rescue profile for possible trapped individuals inside the structure. MyNewsLA.com reported that fire crews responded around 9:15 p.m. Tuesday to extinguish the fire in the 600 block of South Vermont Avenue.
The incident commander declared knockdown at 9:48 p.m., and LAFD said firefighters extinguished the fire within 31 minutes of the 911 call. No injuries were reported, and no patients were found. The department said primary and secondary searches for trapped victims were completed and no victims were located.
Cause Still Undetermined, Building Vacant Since 2015
LAFD said the cause of the fire was undetermined at the time of its alert. The same MyNewsLA report noted that the restaurant had remained vacant following its sale to developers in 2015, a stretch of more than a decade with no active business inside.
Plans have circulated for redevelopment of a nearby Denny's site on South Vermont Avenue. According to Urbanize Los Angeles, developer Jia Long USA proposed a 33-story mixed-use tower called Wilshire Gate at 631 S. Vermont Avenue, replacing a Denny's restaurant and an adjoining parking lot, with plans calling for a 450-foot building featuring 250 apartments, 200 hotel rooms, office space, parking and ground-floor retail. A separate account from Neighborhoods.com described the proposal as including roughly 200 condominium units alongside 200 guest rooms, a different figure than Urbanize's reporting of 250 apartments. Urbanize reported that construction was expected to take approximately 24 months, though no groundbreaking date had been announced.
Pattern of Fires in Vacant Koreatown Buildings
Tuesday's fire adds to a string of incidents at abandoned structures in the neighborhood. CBS Los Angeles reported that flames tore through an abandoned Koreatown strip mall near South Vermont Avenue and 3rd Street, drawing 71 firefighters to the greater-alarm blaze, which was declared out about 45 minutes later. That station reported the building had burned several times before, contributing to the collapse of its facade, with no injuries reported.
In April 2026, a fire at a three-story abandoned building near 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue caused a partial roof collapse, according to OnScene.TV, which reported no injuries at the time of that incident. Vermont Avenue was shut down between Oakwood Avenue and 3rd Street during that response and overhaul. As with Tuesday's fire at the former Denny's, the cause of that earlier blaze was not resolved in available reporting.
