Steven Arroyo, the influential restaurateur behind numerous iconic restaurants in Los Angeles, including tapas hotspot Cobras & Matadors, died on July 28 at age 55. His daughter Lola confirmed his passing to Eater. One of Arroyo’s business partners told the Los Angeles Times that he died due to medical complications from his cancer treatment.

With a sharp sense for developing raw talent and a penchant for hospitality, Arroyo helped define Los Angeles’s culinary scene for over three decades with blockbusters like Boxer and Escuela Taqueria in Fairfax, Malo in Silver Lake, Church & State in the Arts District, and mini-chain Burger She Wrote, which just opened its newest outpost in Venice.

One of Arroyo’s business partners, Jen Searle, remembers meeting him in 1995 at Swingers Diner on Beverly and Laurel. Being new to town, Searle biked over to drop off a resume to work as a server in the diner, which happened to be where Arroyo and his associates were having breakfast. Searle remembers Arroyo “poaching” her resume from the manager and offering her a job at his new restaurant Boxer.

“That was the most incredible restaurant ever,” Searle says. For Boxer, Arroyo tapped Neal Fraser, an unknown chef at the time, to lead the kitchen. “He’s really good at finding talent,” Searle says. “It’s his thing. He’s fearless.” She recounts a night at Boxer when Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were turned away because no tables were available. “It was first come, first serve, and we didn’t budge from that,” she says.

Searle worked with Arroyo over the decades before stepping away to help manage her family’s restaurant. But fate brought them together again when she saw a sign for the reopened Cobras & Matadors while driving down Beverly Boulevard. She quickly called Arroyo, who said he needed her to come back to work for him immediately. Searle continues to be employed by Arroyo’s restaurants. In addition to official tasks like managing payroll and handling permits for Coachella, Searle supports Arroyo’s children, Lola and Luca, who work at Cobras & Matadors and Escuela Taqueria. “They have his DNA,” she says. “They are the best of him, and I’m the luckiest person in the world because I get to work with them.” Arroyo is also survived by his youngest son, Pele, and life partner, Aimee Mcneilly.

Lola remembers her father as someone people would naturally gravitate toward. “He didn’t have a flashy personality,” she says. “He was so warm to everyone. He didn’t make himself out to be the star of the show, but somehow he always was.” She calls the response to his passing from the Los Angeles restaurant community “overwhelming,” but feels deeply connected to the people and lives he touched because of it.

Lola has been managing Cobras & Matadors since it reopened in March 2024. Arroyo’s confidence in her taking the role motivates her work; she tells Eater that she’s “completely fallen in love with working in restaurants.” “For him, his restaurants [created] a space for friends and family,” Lola says. “They’ve become home bases for our community, which is beautiful.”

Throughout his career, Arroyo was celebrated by critics for his innate understanding of what makes restaurants tick. Los Angeles Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila wrote about the scene at Cobras & Matadors in her 2004 review, calling it “fun” and “raucous” with a “defining style.” In Jonathan Gold’s 2014 write-up of Church & State for the Los Angeles Times, he called the coq au vin the best he’d ever eaten in a restaurant and compared the vibe to that of a smoky Parisian bistro.

Searle believes that there will never be another restaurateur quite like Arroyo. She remembers him never getting stressed, no matter the situation, and lifting up everyone around him as he found success. At a time when there weren’t as many female operators in restaurant hospitality, she recognizes the impact of Arroyo having no misgivings about putting responsibility in her hands. “He didn’t even doubt himself once,” Searle says. “He just did it.”

Looking forward, Searle and Lola confirm that all of Arroyo’s restaurants will remain open. “I have his voice telling me, ‘Business as usual,’” Searle says. “‘Why would you ever do something so stupid as closing down?’”