Often a trip to downtown was required – more precisely, to skid-row. Some of our clients live in what are euphemistically called Single Room Occupancy Hotels. Hotel is the euphemism. Once grand old symbols of a growing Los Angeles, they are now old, very scruffy, dirty and often dangerous, crawling with unsavory characters. They represent the underbelly of the hospitality industry.

When we deliver food there we leave the meal at the front desk. For safety reasons, we don’t allow our drivers to go up to the rooms. But I went. I had to see the clients.