West Hollywood’s Irv’s Burgers faces yet another development challenge.

Momma and Sonia Hong, owners of Irv's Burgers in West Hollywood.

In 2004, owner and namesake of the burger stand sought to develop the Santa Monica Boulevard lot on which stands the 1950s-era roadside burger stand that emblemizes Route 66 culture.

The stand, kitty-corner from City Hall at 8291-93 Santa Monica Boulevard, had been bought from Irv Gendis in 2000 for $100,000 by a Korean-American family, the Hongs, and has become among the city’s best-known and most beloved eateries.

Sonia, Momma and Sean Hong made the place everyone’s family burger stand; Sonia became famous for drawing your picture on your paper plate with a “Just for you, Ryan,” underneath it.

One burger blogger, Jess Rossi, called Irv's Burgers, "The classic burger wrapped in wax paper, a Southern California staple. 

Hands down, this is my favorite style of burger and also the least popular style in my current home of Philly. This style of burger is why I must visit LA at least one a year.

It's like my Burger Mecca. Toasted squishy white bun, thin patty topped with American cheese with a little lettuce, tomato and onion.

The burger had a nice crust to it that I can only imagine comes from a grill that has been cooking up burgers for as long as it has."

Eight years ago, in August 2004, an application for the demolition of all commercial structures on the property for the construction of a Peet’s Coffee was submitted.

Popular uproar led to a movement to “Save Irv’s Burgers” and calls came from historic preservationists and the burger-eating community alike to place the business on the city’s list of Cultural Resources.

The City Council designated the Irv’s Burgers restaurant as a local cultural resource on September 19, 2005.

Faced with the uncertainty, not to mention the time and money necessary to complete the required environmental review the developer withdrew the application in January, 2005.

Since then, an empty dirt lot has stood at next to the burger stand at the city’s center - in front of a long-abandoned auto repair shop - a case of urban blight if ever there was one.

Now, eight years later, and two years after The Standard Oil Investment Group bought the land from Mr. Gendis, the new developers seek to improve the site building a café on the lot  called Café Beach.

Momma and Sonia Hong, owners of Irv's Burgers in West Hollywood.

And Sonia Hong fears for her family’s investment and the future of Irv’s.

Beginning in December, Ms. Hong says she has heard repeatedly from her landlords that they want her gone so they can bring in a new business to run the stand.

Despite Ms. Hong’s fears and clams, the managing partner, Steven Bohbot says that he “doesn’t want the Hong family to leave. We love them; they are a great business and have much community goodwill.”

Confirming that Irv’s had been visited repeatedly, her landlord’s representative at Standard Oil Investment Group, Michael Bitton, told WeHo News that he has been trying to negotiate a new lease.

“Because of the investment we’re planning in Irv’s Burgers,” he said, “as well as the new Café Beach investment, we’ll have to raise the rent.”

Sonia Hong rushing a plate - with the customers portrait and a "Just for..." on it, to her client.

The Hongs pay roughly $4,500 a month now; Ms. Hong says that she was recently asked for nearly $10,000, a better than 100 percent jump.

The investment firm would not confirm the amount of that request, saying only that, “We are trying to work something out with them to keep them there and trying to have a good relationship with them.”

Mr. Bitton told WeHo News that feels that Ms. Hong is “panicking, so communications and negotiations have been, well, challenging.”

In a case of classic he said-she said, Ms. Hong claims that Mr. Bitton offered her $20,000 to leave for another location. Mr. Bitton denies making that offer.

The “negotiations” and the position in which the Hong family finds itself happens to be mirrored to some extent in the Henry’s Taco stand battle in Studio City.

That business, a family-run neighborhood place for 51-years, was also threatened with closure to make room for a commercial development and now faces closure – within days – if an angel buyer does not invest in the business.

Irv's Burgers sits on Route 66 and represents a nearly lost breed of roadside burger stands. It was included in "Hamburger America" by George Motz is a state by state guide to some of the best burgers in the country.

That year-long dispute started when the business’s owner, Janis Hood, applied for a historical monument designation to save the structure.

The landlord, property owner Mehran Ebrahimpour of Beverly Hills, objected to the landmark nomination, saying it could affect the property's sale or development.

He first refused to renew her lease, then jacked the rent 150 percent.

Ms. Hood told WeHo News, “I guess I should have let someone else bring the application forward. Maybe then he would have left me alone instead of taking retribution.”

Despite lining up several potential buyers for the business, all were nixed by Mr. Ebrahimpour fr one reason or another.

Ms. Hood said she finally found someone close to the business and familiar with its operations and with impeccable credential that Mr. Ebrahimpour could not turn down.

Because of the public outrage over the shop’s closing, she was able to gain a small extension on her lease, but only until January 10 – this Thursday.

Artist concept of Beach Cafe, the restaurant proposed for the rest of the lot on which Irv's stands.

When WeHo News talked to her on Sunday, January 6, she said that Mr. Ebrahimpour had raised the rent again, so high that her new buyers asked for a $40,000 discount off the purchase price so they could complete the deal and still have a chance at making a profit.

The only other alternative is selling the equipment and walking away. Ms. Hood said, “I have some really hard decisions to make in the next few days.”

Eat at Irv's Burgers for your own designer plate, not to mention a really good burger. Photo courtesy Adam Kuban

The negotiations over Irv’s Burgers future have not reached the cliff’s edge, but Mayor Jeffrey Prang predicted that the Hongs would one day see themselves in the same precarious position.

“We can protect a building by putting it on the Cultural Resource register, but if the building is in too bad of a shape to save, the landlord can get around the restrictions to gut, or even demolish it.

Michael Bitton acknowledged that repairing the 62-year old structure (which was not built for the ages to begin with), might prove to be prohibitively expensive.

“I know the stand needs a new roof,” he said, “but if we start to repair the roof, what might we find next? It might be so bad that we have to replace everything down to the foundation.”

Still, Mr. Bohbot promised that the end result would, "be a jewel."

But even if the repairs come off within reason, said Mayor Prang, designating a building as a Cultural Resource does nothing to protect the business’s proprietor.

“We can protect buildings, but we can’t make people Cultural Resources,” he said, “as much as I would like to.”

He wrote a letter to the landlord in December appealing to them to allow the Hongs to remain in place.

In any case, he suggested that with land owners sometimes being, “greedy… landlords will often raise the rent beyond what a business owner can afford. That’s what happened at Borrelli Salon, and that place sat vacant for years and years and years. It has happened time and again all over the city.”

For the time being, though, Sonia Hong will continue to serve one of America’s best burgers, draw happy faces on your plate and please her loyal following.