Duke’s Malibu Lays Off 126 Workers After Mudslide

After months of fighting the effects of fires and mudslides, Duke’s Malibu has laid off the majority of its employees.

The first indications of the news came yesterday after the restaurant showed up on the State of California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) list, which noted 126 employees were being let go. The reason for the workforce reduction was listed as “Closure Permanent.”

That led to reports that the Malibu landmark — operating as Duke’s since 1996 and serving meals as the Las Flores Inn, the Sea Lion and Charlie Browns successively since 1915 — was closing.

Not so, according to a notice posted late yesterday on the restaurant’s social media channels. That posting reads as follows:

UPDATE AS OF 3/25: We are temporarily closed due to the mudslide that caused extensive damage. However, we anticipate reopening this summer once we complete the cleanup and repairs. We look forward to hiring back our employees and welcoming guests back in a few months. We can’t wait to see you then!

That notice was followed by a statement late yesterday from the CEO of TS Restaurants, — which owns Duke’s, Jackie Reed.

“Due to the continued closure, we were forced to enact layoffs for the majority of our Duke’s Malibu employees,” Reed told SFGATE, which had originally reported the closure. “We appreciate all of the community support and it is important that our community knows we will be open as soon as possible.” 

Deadline also reached out to TS Restaurants yesterday for comment and this story will be updated when one is received.

Duke’s has been closed since January 7, according to General Manager Jimmy Chavez.

Chavez told NBC4 on February 17 that the Malibu institution, which seemed mostly spared from the wildfire, was “right about at the end of the [smoke] remediation process because of the Palisades Fire” when the mudflow hit. That flooded the entire restaurant.

He said that the time that Duke’s was trying to support employees, in part through donations from the public. Employees had already waited five weeks by that point for the Malibu landmark to reopen.

The Malibu Times reported in February that the restaurant had 130 employees, six of whom lost their homes to the Palisades Fire. Among those was Duke’s Ambassador of Aloha, Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, the original Gidget on whom her father Fredrick Kohner’s 1954 novel and the eponymous 1959 movie starring Sandra Dee — which spawned two other films — and the 1965 TV show starring Sally Field as were based.

The mudflow down Las Flores Canyon in mid-February happened the same day an LAFD member had his vehicle swept off the road and into the ocean by a large debris flow just down the coast at Big Rock Road. Duke’s was inundated with mud.