The Knowledge
Why can’t it always be summer? It’s all about the Earth’s tilt
Earth’s axial tilt causes the seasons. As Earth orbits the Sun, different hemispheres tilt toward or away, creating summer and winter depending on location.
Last Updated on March 13, 2026 by Daily News Staff
Stephanie Spera, University of Richmond
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.
Why can’t it always be summer? – Amanda, age 5, Chile
With its long days just itching to be spent by water doing nothing, summer really can be an enchanting season. As Jenny Han wrote in the young adult novel “The Summer I Turned Pretty”: “Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.”
But all good things must come to an end, and summer cannot last forever. There’s both a simple reason and a more complicated one. The simple reason is that it can’t always be summer because the Earth is tilted. The more complicated answer requires some geometry.
I’m a professor of geography and the environment who has studied seasonal changes on the landscape. Here’s what seasons have to do with our planet’s position as it moves through the solar system.
This animation shows why the Earth has seasons.
Closeness to the Sun doesn’t explain seasons
First, you need to know that the Earth is a sphere – technically, an oblate spheroid. That means Earth has a round shape a little wider than it is tall.
Every year, Earth travels in its orbit to make one revolution around the Sun. The Earth’s orbit is an ellipse, which is more like an oval than a circle. So there are times when Earth is closer to the Sun and times when it’s farther away.
A lot of people assume this distance is why we have seasons. But these people would be wrong. In the United States, the Earth is 3 million miles closer to the Sun during winter than in the summer.
Spinning like a top
Now picture an imaginary line across Earth, right in the middle, at 0° latitude. This line is called the equator. If you drew it on a globe, the equator would pass through countries including Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia and Ecuador.
Everything north of the equator, including the United States, is considered the Northern Hemisphere, and everything south of the equator is the Southern Hemisphere.
Now think of the Earth’s axis as another imaginary line that runs vertically through the middle of the Earth, going from the North Pole to the South Pole.
As it orbits, or revolves, around the Sun, the Earth also rotates. That means it spins on its axis, like a top. The Earth takes one full year to revolve around the Sun and takes 24 hours, or one day, to do one full rotation on its axis.
This axis is why we have day and night; during the day, we’re facing the Sun, and at night, we’re facing away.
But the Earth’s axis does not go directly up and down. Instead, its axis is always tilted at 23.5 degrees in the exact same direction, toward the North Star.
The Earth’s axis is tilted due to a giant object – perhaps an ancient planet – smashing into it billions of years ago. And it’s this tilt that causes seasons.
It’s all about the tilt
So that means in June, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun. That tilt means more sunlight, more solar energy, longer days – all the things that make summer, well, summer.
At the same time, the Southern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun. So countries such as Australia, Chile and Argentina are experiencing winter then.
To say it another way: As the Earth moves around the Sun throughout the year, the parts of the Earth getting the most sunlight are always changing.
Fast-forward to December, and Earth is on the exact opposite side of its orbit as where it was in June. It’s the Southern Hemisphere’s turn to be tilted toward the Sun, which means its summer happens in December, January and February.
If Earth were not tilted at all, there would be no seasons. If it were tilted more than it is, there would be even more extreme seasons and drastic swings in temperature. Summers would be hotter and winters would be colder.
Defining summer
Talk to a meteorologist, climate scientist or author Jenny Han, and they’ll tell you that for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, summer is June, July and August, the warmest months of the year.
But there’s another way to define summer. Talk to astronomers, and they’ll tell you the first day of summer is the summer solstice – the day of the year with the longest amount of daylight and shortest amount of darkness.
The summer solstice occurs every year sometime between June 20 and June 22. And every day after, until the winter solstice in December, the Northern Hemisphere receives a little less daylight.
Summer officially ends on the autumnal equinox, the fall day when everywhere on Earth has an equal amount of daylight and night. The autumnal equinox happens every year on either September 22 or 23.
But whether you view summer like Jenny Han or like an astronomer, one thing is certain: Either way, summer must come to an end. But the season and the magic it brings with it will be back before you know it.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Stephanie Spera, Assistant Professor of Geography and the Environment, University of Richmond
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The phrase “There’s only one race: human” is simple, hopeful and deeply appealing. It reminds us that beneath differences in skin color, ancestry, nationality and culture, we are members of the same human family.
We share the same basic needs. We want safety, dignity, opportunity, love and a better future for the people we care about. No racial category makes one person more human—or more deserving of respect—than another.
At its best, the phrase rejects the false idea that humanity is divided into separate biological races with different levels of intelligence, character or worth. Those beliefs have been used throughout history to justify slavery, segregation, colonialism and discrimination. Saying that there is only one human race can therefore be a powerful declaration of equality.
But the meaning of the phrase depends on how we use it.
Shared Humanity Does Not Mean Identical Experiences
Although race does not separate people into distinct biological types, racial categories still carry enormous social power. They have shaped laws, neighborhoods, schools, employment, policing, health care and access to wealth. Their consequences do not disappear simply because we say that everyone is human.
That is why “There’s only one race: human” should never become another way of saying, “I don’t see color,” when someone is describing racism or inequality.
Ignoring race does not automatically end racism. In some situations, it can prevent us from recognizing it.
If one group repeatedly encounters barriers that others do not, acknowledging those differences is not an attempt to divide people. It is part of understanding the problem honestly. We cannot repair an injustice that we refuse to see.
Our Differences Are Not the Problem
Human unity does not require sameness. Our cultural identities, traditions, histories and communities are not obstacles that must be erased before we can respect one another.
There is nothing contradictory about celebrating Black history, Latino heritage, Indigenous traditions, Asian American experiences or the many cultures that contribute to our society while also believing in our common humanity.
The problem is not that people have differences. The problem begins when those differences are assigned a hierarchy—when one identity is treated as the standard and another as inferior, threatening or less deserving.
Real unity allows people to bring their complete identities into the room. It does not demand that they leave their histories at the door.
A Statement That Should Lead to Action
If we truly believe there is only one human race, that belief should influence how we treat people. It should lead us to oppose discrimination even when we are not its target. It should make us question stereotypes, listen to experiences different from our own and defend the dignity of people whose backgrounds we may not fully understand.
Shared humanity is more than a comforting slogan. It is a responsibility.
It asks us to recognize that another person’s pain matters, even when it is unfamiliar to us. It reminds us that no community is disposable and that injustice against one group ultimately damages the society we all share.
One Human Family, Many Human Stories
To me, “There’s only one race: human” is most meaningful when it brings two truths together: we are fundamentally equal, and we do not all experience the world in the same way.
We can affirm that there is one human family without pretending racism has disappeared. We can value what connects us without erasing what makes our communities distinct. We can pursue unity while still confronting the inequalities that stand in its way.
Perhaps the fullest version of the message is this:
We are one human family. Our differences deserve respect, our histories deserve acknowledgment, and every person deserves equal dignity.
That is not merely an ideal. It is a standard by which we can judge our choices, our institutions and the kind of world we are building together.
What does the phrase “There’s only one race: human” mean to you? Share your perspective in the comments.
Sources and Related Links
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights — United Nations
Establishes that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. - What Are Human Rights? — United Nations Human Rights Office
Explains universal human rights and freedom from discrimination. - Using Population Descriptors in Genetics and Genomics Research — National Academies
Examines why race should not be treated as a substitute for human genetic variation. - AAPA Statement on the Biological Aspects of Race — American Association of Biological Anthropologists
Discusses the scientific evidence concerning race, human biological variation and institutional discrimination. - Race and Ethnicity — American Anthropological Association
An educational examination of race as a social classification and ethnicity as a cultural identity. - Talking About Race — Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Resources for understanding racism, racial identity and their effects on society. - Race: Are We So Different? — Smithsonian Institution
Explores race and racism through biological, cultural and historical perspectives.
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Forgotten Genius Fridays
Two Black Pioneers Who Helped Change Heart Surgery Forever
Two Black Pioneers Who Helped Change Heart Surgery. Decades apart, Daniel Hale Williams and Vivien Thomas challenged the limits of medicine and helped pave the way toward modern cardiac surgery.
Forgotten Genius Friday: Daniel Hale Williams and Vivien Thomas helped push cardiac surgery from the nearly unthinkable toward modern medicine.
Today, open-heart surgery is performed routinely in hospitals around the world. Surgeons can repair defective valves, bypass blocked arteries and correct complex congenital heart defects using technology that would have seemed almost unimaginable little more than a century ago.
Black Pioneers Who Helped Change Heart Surgery
But the road to modern heart surgery includes two remarkable Black medical pioneers whose contributions came more than 50 years apart: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and Vivien Thomas.
One demonstrated that surgeons could successfully intervene in injuries involving the heart at a time when such operations were considered extraordinarily dangerous.
The other helped develop an operation that opened a new era of cardiac surgery.
Their stories belong together.
Daniel Hale Williams and the 1893 Operation
In 1893, surgery was dramatically different from what patients experience today.
There were no antibiotics. Blood typing had yet to become standard medical knowledge. Modern blood transfusions, intensive-care units and heart-lung machines did not exist.
Against that backdrop, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed an extraordinary operation at Provident Hospital in Chicago.
Williams, born in 1856, was already breaking barriers in American medicine. He founded Provident Hospital and Training School in 1891, creating an institution where Black doctors and nurses could receive training and Black patients could obtain medical treatment at a time when segregation severely restricted their access to many hospitals.
Then came a patient named James Cornish.
Cornish had suffered a serious stab wound to the chest. Williams opened his chest and operated on the structures surrounding the heart, including repairing the pericardium—the protective sac surrounding the heart.
Cornish survived.
The operation became one of the most celebrated moments in the history of American surgery.
Was It Really the First Open-Heart Surgery?
Here is where the history requires some clarification.
Williams is frequently credited with performing the world’s first successful open-heart operation. The U.S. National Library of Medicine, for example, describes his 1893 procedure as the world’s first open-heart surgery.
However, terminology has changed.
Under today’s medical definition, “open-heart surgery” usually refers to an operation performed directly on or inside the heart, frequently with the assistance of cardiopulmonary bypass.
Williams’s operation did not involve opening the chambers of the heart.
For that reason, describing his achievement as one of the earliest successful cardiac operations provides a more precise historical description.
That clarification doesn’t diminish Williams’s accomplishment.
Operating successfully in the chest near the heart in 1893—without antibiotics, modern imaging, sophisticated anesthesia, blood banking or intensive postoperative care—was an extraordinary achievement.
And Williams helped demonstrate something enormously important:
The heart was not necessarily beyond the reach of surgery.
Fifty Years Later: Another Breakthrough
Fast-forward approximately half a century.
Another Black medical pioneer would play a critical role in pushing heart surgery forward.
His name was Vivien Thomas.
Thomas dreamed of becoming a doctor, but the economic devastation of the Great Depression wiped out the money he had saved for medical school.
In 1930, he began working as a laboratory assistant for surgeon Alfred Blalock at Vanderbilt University.
Thomas quickly proved extraordinarily talented at experimental surgery.
When Blalock moved to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 1941, Thomas went with him.
There, Thomas would become part of one of the most important developments in the history of cardiac surgery.
The “Blue Baby” Problem
Some children are born with a combination of heart abnormalities called Tetralogy of Fallot.
Because insufficient oxygen reaches their bloodstream, severely affected children can develop a bluish coloration—leading to the historical term “blue baby syndrome.”
At the time, there was little doctors could do for many of these children.
Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig believed a surgical procedure might increase blood flow to the lungs and improve oxygenation.
The challenge was figuring out how to do it.
That’s where Blalock and Thomas entered the story.
Vivien Thomas Builds the Operation
Thomas performed extensive laboratory work developing and perfecting a surgical method that could redirect blood toward the lungs.
Johns Hopkins says Thomas developed and tested the procedure in animals before its first use on a human patient.
His surgical skill became so important that when the first operation was performed, Thomas was present in the operating room guiding Blalock.
On November 29, 1944, the surgical team operated on an 18-month-old child suffering from Tetralogy of Fallot.
The operation successfully increased blood flow to the lungs. Johns Hopkins credits the procedure with eventually saving thousands of children’s lives and helping launch the modern era of cardiac surgery.
It became known for decades as the Blalock-Taussig shunt.
One name was conspicuously missing.
Thomas.
Recognition Comes Decades Later
Despite Thomas’s enormous contribution, racial discrimination shaped both his career and the recognition he received.
Thomas did not have a medical degree and initially worked under classifications and compensation that failed to reflect the sophisticated surgical research he was actually performing.
His role in developing the operation also wasn’t properly credited in the original published account of the procedure. Johns Hopkins itself now describes Thomas as an essential pioneer and notes that he was not given credit when details of the surgery were published in 1945.
Recognition eventually came.
In 1976, Johns Hopkins awarded Thomas an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, and his portrait was placed at the institution.
Even more significantly, Johns Hopkins today incorporates his name into the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center.
History finally added the name that had been missing.
Two Men, Two Eras, One Medical Revolution
Daniel Hale Williams and Vivien Thomas never worked together.
Their breakthroughs happened more than five decades apart.
Their careers were very different.
Williams was a physician, surgeon, hospital founder and medical educator.
Thomas never received the opportunity to become the physician he originally hoped to be, yet became a master surgical technician, researcher and teacher whose skills influenced generations of surgeons.
But their stories intersect in the history of cardiac surgery.
1893 — Daniel Hale Williams demonstrated that extraordinary surgical intervention around the heart could succeed.
1944 — Vivien Thomas helped develop a procedure that demonstrated surgeons could deliberately alter cardiovascular circulation to save children born with serious heart defects.
The 1944 breakthrough was so important that Johns Hopkins describes it as opening the door to today’s heart surgery.
Neither achievement was modern open-heart surgery as we understand it today. The development of cardiopulmonary bypass and the heart-lung machine during the following decade would make operations inside a temporarily stopped heart practical.
But Williams and Thomas helped establish something equally important:
the possibility that surgeons could successfully intervene when the human heart itself was at risk.
Their contributions helped transform cardiac surgery from a medical frontier into one of modern medicine’s most remarkable achievements.
Forgotten Genius Friday
Forgotten Genius Friday celebrates innovators, inventors, scientists and pioneers whose contributions helped shape our modern world but whose names aren’t always as familiar as their accomplishments.
Did you know about Daniel Hale Williams or Vivien Thomas? Join the conversation in the comments, share this story and subscribe to the STM Daily News newsletter for more stories about the people who helped change history.
Source
National Library of Medicine — Daniel Hale Williams, M.D.
Background on Williams, Provident Hospital, and his landmark 1893 cardiac operation.
Daniel Hale Williams — National Library of Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine — History of Innovation in Cardiac Surgery
Documents Vivien Thomas’s role in developing the Blue Baby procedure and the historic November 29, 1944 operation. Johns Hopkins describes it as the beginning of a new era in cardiac surgery.
Johns Hopkins Cardiac Surgery Research Lab History
Related External Links
Johns Hopkins — Innovations in Heart Medicine
Explains how Thomas, Alfred Blalock, Helen Taussig and their colleagues developed the Blue Baby operation and how it helped open the door to modern cardiac surgery.
Innovations in Heart Medicine
Johns Hopkins — Vivien Thomas Biography
Especially useful for the Forgotten Genius angle. Johns Hopkins states that Thomas developed and tested the procedure in animals and stood behind Blalock guiding him during the first human operation; Thomas was not credited in the original published report.
Vivien Thomas — Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins — Celebrating a Transformative Medical Milestone
A detailed account of the first Blue Baby operation on 18-month-old Eileen Saxon in 1944 and Thomas’s role in the operating room.
75th Anniversary of the Blue Baby Operation
PubMed — Daniel Hale Williams in Proper Perspective
A useful scholarly source confirming that Williams successfully sutured a pericardial laceration caused by a stab wound in 1893 and that the patient recovered.
Daniel Hale Williams — PubMed
NIH/PMC — Cardiac Surgery: A Century of Progress
Provides broader historical context and notes that Williams’s 1893 operation was among the earliest successful repairs of pericardial wounds, following Henry C. Dalton’s 1891 operation. This is particularly valuable for avoiding the oversimplified claim that Williams indisputably performed history’s first heart operation.
Cardiac Surgery: A Century of Progress
Local Business
Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles: An L.A. Institution Confronts a Complicated Legacy
Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles grew from a Harlem-inspired restaurant into a symbol of Black Los Angeles. Fifty years later, lawsuits, bankruptcy, closures and questions about its leadership have complicated the celebrated chain’s legacy.
Last Updated on September 1, 2026 by Daily News Staff
For generations of Southern Californians, Roscoe’s was more than a famous combination of fried chicken and waffles. After 50 years, the restaurant’s cultural importance remains—but lawsuits, bankruptcy, closures and questions about its leadership have complicated the story.
What Happened to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles?
For many visitors to Los Angeles, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles is a destination—one of those famous places they have seen in movies, heard about in songs or watched celebrities visit.
For many of us who grew up in Los Angeles County, however, Roscoe’s occupies a different place in our memories. It was not necessarily our introduction to soul food, nor was chicken and waffles an exotic discovery. Roscoe’s was one among many soul-food restaurants where families ate in South Los Angeles, Inglewood, Compton, Watts and Long Beach.
I ate food from the South L.A. and Inglewood restaurants when I was young, although I was too young to compare the locations. When I returned to Roscoe’s as an adult and ate at the Long Beach location in 2021, I thought the food was good. That experience connected a familiar name from my Southern California childhood with the restaurant Roscoe’s had become decades later.
But the Roscoe’s story today is no longer only about food and nostalgia. It is also about how a Black cultural institution manages its legacy after lawsuits, bankruptcy proceedings, restaurant closures and a public controversy that caused some longtime customers to question who now controls the business—and whether its leadership still understands the community that helped make Roscoe’s famous.
From Harlem inspiration to a West Coast phenomenon
Herbert “Herb” Hudson, a Harlem native and former General Motors foreman, founded Roscoe’s in 1975. Accounts differ on whether the first restaurant was in Hollywood or Long Beach: Roscoe’s official history identifies the company as Hollywood-based, while culinary historian Adrian Miller and several contemporary reports place Hudson’s first location in Long Beach. What is undisputed is that Hudson brought a Harlem-influenced restaurant concept to Southern California and turned it into something distinctly Angeleno.
Hudson drew inspiration from the chicken-and-waffle restaurants and late-night music culture associated with Harlem, particularly Wells Supper Club. Chicken and waffles existed long before either Wells or Roscoe’s, with roots stretching through Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, Southern foodways and the work of Black cooks. Roscoe’s achievement was not inventing the pairing. It was making fried chicken and waffles a recognizable part of Los Angeles dining and eventually a national phenomenon.
In a 1978 advertisement in the Los Angeles Sentinel, Roscoe’s described the dish as “an East Coast specialty with a West Coast atmosphere.” It was an effective summary of Hudson’s idea.
His entertainment connections helped carry the restaurant beyond its neighborhood base. Stevie Wonder, Natalie Cole and comedian Redd Foxx were associated with its early rise, while athletes, actors, musicians and political figures followed. Roscoe’s became a place where local customers, tourists and celebrities could occupy the same dining room.
The restaurant also offered far more than its headline combination. Grits, eggs, greens, macaroni and cheese, red beans and rice, hot-water cornbread and chicken livers helped place Roscoe’s within the larger soul-food tradition. James Beard Award-winning author Adrian Miller’s history of Roscoe’s describes how Hudson used Black media, music connections and neighborhood locations to build the company.
Becoming part of Black Los Angeles
Roscoe’s did not become an institution merely because famous people ate there. Black Los Angeles made it an institution.
Families celebrated there. Musicians stopped in after performances. Local residents brought visiting relatives. Young people grew up knowing the name before national food television began treating chicken and waffles as a culinary discovery.
Roscoe’s also entered popular culture. It was referenced in movies including Jackie Brown, Rush Hour and Soul Plane, appeared in television productions and was mentioned in music. Its yellow-and-red signs became visual shorthand for a particular side of Los Angeles—one connected to Black culture, nightlife and neighborhood life rather than beaches and Hollywood premieres.
President Barack Obama’s 2011 visit to the Pico Boulevard restaurant represented a high point in that cultural journey. Obama ordered three wings and a waffle, and the meal became known as the “Obama’s Special.” A restaurant created by a Black entrepreneur and sustained heavily by Black customers had served the nation’s first Black president.
Roscoe’s fame, however, could sometimes obscure the larger community around it. Los Angeles has long supported many soul-food kitchens, family restaurants and neighborhood establishments. Roscoe’s became the name outsiders recognized, but it was never the whole story of soul food in Southern California.
The discrimination case and bankruptcy
The most consequential legal chapter began with former employee Daniel Beasley, a Black man who sued East Coast Foods, the company managing several Roscoe’s restaurants.
Beasley alleged that Latino managers gave Latino employees preferential schedules and working conditions while treating Black workers unfairly. He also alleged that he was terminated after complaining about discrimination. A jury found in his favor, and the resulting judgment was ultimately reported at approximately $3.2 million.
This was a particularly damaging case for Roscoe’s reputation. The allegations did not come from an outside critic attacking a Black-owned institution. They came from a Black employee accusing the company behind that institution of failing Black workers.
East Coast Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2016. The discrimination judgment was a major factor, but it was not the company’s only financial obligation. Court proceedings described millions of dollars in additional debt.
The restructuring grew complicated. An examiner concluded that East Coast Foods could not meet its fiduciary responsibilities, and a court-appointed trustee effectively led the company for two years. A bankruptcy judge also ordered Hudson to reverse a transfer of the Roscoe’s name and trademark to an affiliated company he controlled, finding the transfer improper under bankruptcy law.
A restructuring plan took effect in September 2018. It promised creditors full payment with interest, secured by company assets and as much as $10 million from Hudson. The restaurants remained open. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later summarized the proceedings and Hudson’s guarantee.
The bankruptcy is important when discussing claims that Roscoe’s “changed hands.” Court supervision, the temporary appointment of a trustee and the emergence of new executives clearly changed how parts of the company were controlled. However, available reporting does not establish a straightforward sale of the entire chain to a new owner.
That distinction matters. Social-media posts frequently describe Roscoe’s as no longer Black-owned, but the company has not publicly provided a clear, current breakdown of its ownership. The most accurate conclusion is that Roscoe’s corporate structure and leadership became more complicated and less transparent—not that a complete sale has been conclusively documented.
A second employee lawsuit
Roscoe’s faced another labor case in January 2024 when former employee Jaime Alejandro Carbajal-Torres filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Carbajal-Torres, who said he worked for the company for more than 20 years, alleged unpaid overtime, interrupted or missed meal and rest periods, unpaid vacation wages and unreimbursed work expenses. The complaint sought class-action status, unspecified damages and an injunction against further violations of California labor law.
These are allegations in a civil complaint, not proven findings, and Roscoe’s did not immediately respond to the original request for comment, according to L.A. Taco’s report.
Nevertheless, the filing revived uncomfortable questions about the treatment of the people whose labor sustains a celebrated restaurant brand. For a company whose identity is tied so strongly to community, repeated employee complaints cannot simply be dismissed as a public-relations inconvenience.
Closures, tragedy and public controversy
The last several years have brought additional challenges.
Roscoe’s closed its celebrated Pico Boulevard restaurant in January 2023 after approximately 32 years. The company directed customers to its newer La Brea flagship, which opened in 2021. In June 2024, the Pasadena restaurant closed after 30 years, although the company said it hoped to find an upgraded location in the city. The Los Angeles Times reported that some customers had begun questioning whether rising prices still matched the food’s quality.
The chain was also touched by tragedy in September 2022 when rapper PnB Rock was shot and killed during a robbery at the Manchester Avenue restaurant. That killing was not a business controversy created by Roscoe’s, but it attached another painful chapter to the restaurant’s recent history.
Then, in November 2024, a large inflatable figure of Donald Trump appeared near the Long Beach restaurant. Images spread online, leading some customers to believe Roscoe’s was endorsing Trump and prompting calls for a boycott.
Roscoe’s COO and creative director Diane Vara said the inflatable was connected to a political watch party at an adjacent jazz lounge, not the restaurant itself. According to Eater Los Angeles, the event was hosted by the Los Angeles County Republican Party and URBT News at the neighboring venue.
That explanation did not fully settle the controversy. Vara, who described herself publicly as a partner in Roscoe’s, had also exchanged contentious social-media comments with a food creator who criticized the restaurant and shared a homemade chicken-and-waffle recipe. The tone of the response intensified existing doubts about the company’s ownership, values and relationship with its traditional customers.
For many longtime patrons, the reaction was about more than partisan politics. Roscoe’s had spent decades benefiting from its status as a symbol of Black Los Angeles. Customers therefore expected its leadership to recognize how its actions—or events appearing to be associated with its property—would be understood by that community.
The state of Roscoe’s today
Roscoe’s reached its 50th anniversary in 2025. Its official website currently lists Hollywood, South L.A., Long Beach, Inglewood-LAX, Anaheim, La Brea and Pasadena, although the old Pasadena restaurant closed in 2024 and the company has discussed seeking a replacement site.
There are also signs of continued ambition. Roscoe’s has signed a lease for a space of more than 3,000 square feet at Los Angeles Union Station, according to 2026 reporting, though no firm public opening date had been announced. A Union Station restaurant would place Roscoe’s inside one of Southern California’s most important transportation landmarks as Los Angeles prepares for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
This means Roscoe’s is not simply disappearing. It is contracting in some places, repositioning itself in others and attempting to carry a famous name into a new era.
But survival is not the same as renewal.
Roscoe’s still possesses something most restaurants could never purchase: a half-century of cultural memory. It helped popularize chicken and waffles across the country. It provided a gathering place for generations of Angelenos. It became one of the most recognizable Black-founded restaurant brands in America.
That history deserves recognition—but it should not shield the company from scrutiny.
To retain the loyalty of the community that built it, Roscoe’s needs greater clarity about its ownership and leadership, fair treatment of its workers, consistent food and service, and a more thoughtful relationship with longtime customers. Nostalgia can bring people back once. Trust is what keeps them returning.
Roscoe’s remains an L.A. institution. The question now is whether the company managing that institution understands the responsibility that comes with the name.
Editor’s note: This article distinguishes court findings from allegations. Claims in the 2024 labor complaint remain allegations unless proven in court or resolved through an acknowledged settlement. Publicly available reporting does not conclusively establish that the entire Roscoe’s chain was sold or ceased to be Black-owned.
Sources and related reading
- Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles — official history
- The layered legacy of Roscoe’s — Adrian Miller, Resy
- In re East Coast Foods — Ninth Circuit opinion
- Roscoe’s sued by former employee over alleged labor violations — L.A. Taco
- Roscoe’s closes its Pasadena restaurant after three decades — Los Angeles Times
- The controversy surrounding the Trump inflatable near Roscoe’s — Eater Los Angeles
