Hear in LA

every neighborhood matters

Ukrainian Danny Will Change Your Life at Cafe Tropical

Once in need of help, Danny Khorunzhiy and his pals have brought the Silver Lake staple back so it can help others

If you live in LA long enough, you’re going to run into some good people who have discovered they can’t keep a handle on their drinking or drugging like others. They end up going to AA meetings and if they’re lucky they’ll wind up in a place they love.

In Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Hollywood, the back room at The Cafe Tropical has been one of those safe havens for addicts and their loved ones for decades.

Last year a sign was taped to the Cuban cafe bidding farewell to its customers and denizens.

Panic spread around the LA twitterverse because the cafe was the spot to go to meetings, congregate, and nibble on the delicious treats.

When the great Eugene Edwards drove from Eagle Rock to Hear in LA HQ in East Hollywood, because he’s a gentleman, he stopped off at Cafe Tropical to bring over some snacks.

The good juju in the joint is like no other which spills into its delectables.

How it started (in 2023), how it re-started (in spring 2024)

So it’s no wonder that Danny, who has one of the biggest hearts and sweet spirits you’ll meet was part of the friend group who bought the place, fine tuned it, gently redecorated it, and upped the number of meetings from 20 to 27 a week.

As you will hear, Danny also works with Feed The Streets which gives food and drink to the poorest among us. He’s a damn saint.

This episode has fewer edits than ever before. I think I took one minute out, total. This was the chat we had. It may be a bit noisy because the Cafe’s air conditioner was on full blast on a hot day.

But hopefully Danny’s pure goodness will warm your heart as it did mine.

Follow him on IG at LA_Scumbag, follow the Cafe at cafetropicalsunset and follow Feed The Streets at feedthestreets_la — all of these angels should get more and more love for what they do.

How great was Danny? When you stoke us you’re saying: Thanks for showing us truly good people like him. Here’s a bag of dough ray me.

So shout out to our Patreons: Nancy Rommelmann, Shawn Atlow, Matt Mills, Sean Wallace, Greg n Molli, Jamie Taylor, Mark Johnson, Keira Anne, Barney Greinke, Ben Welch, Jen Adams, Trevor Wilson, Bree Wilde, Dougie Gyro, Kristina up North , Rob n Carrie, Adam Tschorn, Ben from Down Unda, Chris from ATX, Gregor and Philip!

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Music and music supervision by Jordan Katz.

Special thanks to Cindy for creating the logo, Jen for inspiring this, and matchmaking beautiful people doing beautiful things.

Thank you, patriots!