Short Summary

After a major water main rupture flooded our West Hollywood café, we were forced to close indefinitely. Your support will help care for our team, begin rebuilding Dialog, and explore a temporary nearby location while we work to bring Dialog home.

Help Bring Dialog Home

Yesterday, our lives changed in an instant.

A major water main ruptured near our West Hollywood café. Within hours, the surrounding streets were flooded, a sinkhole opened just outside our doors, and the place we have spent nearly 18 years building suffered extensive damage.

Now that we have had a little time to process everything, we wanted to share what happened—and to ask for your help.

Walking into Dialog after the flooding is a moment we will never forget.

The café was silent. The floors were covered in water and debris. Equipment, furniture, and parts of the space we know by heart had been badly damaged. Everywhere we looked, we saw another reminder of how suddenly everything had changed.

For nearly 18 years, we have opened these doors day after day.

Yesterday, we could not.

And today, we still do not know when we will be able to welcome you back.

The Past 24 Hours Have Been Overwhelming

Since yesterday morning, we have spent our time moving between restoration crews, engineers, insurance representatives, city officials, phone calls, inspections, and decisions we never imagined we would have to make.

There are still far more questions than answers.

We do not yet know the full extent of the damage. We have already begun working with our insurance company and pursuing all available claims against potentially responsible parties, but those processes take time, and we do not yet know how long recovery will take. We also do not know how long cleanup, permitting, construction, and rebuilding will ultimately take.

But amid all that uncertainty, something happened that we will never forget.

Our phones filled with messages.

Customers came by to check on us. Friends called. Neighbors reached out. Former employees contacted us. People shared stories of birthdays, first dates, business meetings, family breakfasts, and ordinary mornings spent at Dialog.

Again and again, people asked us the same question:

“How can we help?”

At first, we did not know how to answer.

The truth is that we are still trying to process what happened. We are exhausted, heartbroken, and frightened by how much remains unknown.

But we are also incredibly grateful.

Over the past day, we have been reminded that Dialog has never been just ours.

It belongs, in a very real way, to everyone who has ever felt at home here.

Our Greatest Priority: Supporting the Team

When we looked at the damage, our first thoughts were not about the tables, the kitchen, or the walls.

We thought about our people.

We thought about the baristas who know your order before you reach the counter.

The cooks who arrive early each morning.

The servers who have watched your families grow.

The dishwashers, bakers, managers, and team members who quietly keep Dialog moving every day.

Dialog employs roughly 90 people across our team, many of whom have been directly affected by this closure.

They are not numbers on a payroll sheet.

They are people we know and love—people with rent to pay, children to care for, groceries to buy, and families depending on them.

Many have been with us for years. Some have grown up alongside this business. They helped turn our idea for a neighborhood café into the place so many people now call home.

Yesterday, without warning, their lives were turned upside down too.

Our most urgent priority is doing everything we can to support the members of our team affected by this closure and bring them back to work as quickly as possible.

As founders, the weight of that responsibility is difficult to put into words.

Asking for Help Is Not Easy for Us

When we opened Dialog nearly 18 years ago, we believed our responsibility was to serve our community—not ask something from it.

We have made it through difficult years, COVID, unexpected challenges, and many moments when the future felt uncertain. We have always found a way forward without asking our community for financial help.

That is why writing this feels so difficult.

But after hearing “How can we help?” so many times, we realized that accepting help can also be an act of trust.

This is not simply about saving a building.

It is about protecting the people who gave that building its life. It is about preserving a place that has held thousands of moments, conversations, friendships, celebrations, and beginnings.

It is about giving Dialog a chance to come home.

So, with humility, we are asking for your help.

How Your Support Will Help

Our initial fundraising goal is $500,000. It represents the most urgent needs we can identify while professional assessments, insurance claims, and recovery plans are still underway.

Because professional assessments and recovery plans are still developing, we may update the fundraising goal as the full scope of the damage and the needs of our team become clearer.

Funds raised will be prioritized for:

• Providing emergency financial support for team members affected by the closure

• Emergency cleanup, water remediation, sanitation, and safety work

• Replacing damaged equipment, furniture, fixtures, and essential supplies

• Covering unavoidable expenses while the café cannot operate

• Beginning the work required to restore and reopen our West Hollywood location

• Exploring a temporary nearby Dialog pop-up that could bring members of our team back to work sooner

We are actively pursuing all available insurance benefits and claims against all responsible parties. But those processes take time, and we do not yet know what will be covered or when funds may become available.

Any support received through this campaign is intended to help address the immediate needs created by the closure while those recovery efforts move forward.

The needs facing our team and the business are immediate.

We promise to be transparent as we learn more. We will share regular updates about the damage, insurance process, use of funds, rebuilding work, temporary-location plans, and our path toward reopening.

What Dialog Means to Us

When we first opened Dialog, our dream was simple.

We wanted to create a place where people felt welcome. A place where conversations mattered. A place where someone could walk in alone and still feel that they belonged.

Over the years, we watched that dream become something much larger than we ever imagined.

We watched first dates become marriages. Ideas discussed over coffee become companies. Students study for exams and return years later with families of their own.

We celebrated birthdays with you. We watched your children grow. We saw strangers become friends and employees become family.

Somewhere along the way, Dialog stopped being simply a café.

It became a shared home.

Over the past day, standing inside the damaged space, it was painful to see what the water had taken. But reading your messages reminded us of everything it could never take away.

It cannot take away the relationships built here.

It cannot take away the memories.

And it cannot take away our determination to rebuild.

If Dialog Has Ever Felt Like Home

We understand that many people are facing challenges of their own. Please do not feel that donating is the only way to help.

If you are able to contribute, your support will help us care for our team and take the first steps toward reopening.

If you cannot donate, sharing this page would mean more than you know. Share it with someone you met at Dialog. Tell them what this place has meant to you. Help our story reach the people whose lives have crossed through these doors.

As we begin to process everything that has happened over the past day, we remain overwhelmed by what we have lost.

But we are even more overwhelmed by the love, encouragement, and support you have shown us.

Thank you for every message, every phone call, every visit, every prayer, and every offer to help. Thank you for reminding us, during one of the hardest moments of our lives, that we are not facing this alone.

Yesterday, we did not know how to answer when people asked how they could help.

We do now.

If Dialog has ever felt like home to you, we would be honored to have your help bringing it home again.

With all our love and gratitude,

Narbeh and Tadeh Ghazalian

Founders, Dialog Café

#BringDialogHome