Crustacean's Last Weeks on Bedford Drive, and Where the Garlic Noodles Go Next

"We would never serve something different," Elizabeth An told the Los Angeles Times this summer, when asked whether Crustacean would put together a farewell menu for its final weeks. "We're gonna serve what everyone loves."

So there's no closing tasting menu at 468 N. Bedford Drive. The Times reported that the restaurant would keep serving its signature dishes. That includes the dim sum set out on a tree-shaped display and the tuna cigars that arrive in real cigar boxes, overflowing with tobiko caviar. The family has also made clear that the dishes people come for will outlast the building. The garlic noodles and roasted Dungeness crab are moving to pop-ups and possibly to a new location. Beverly Hills keeps none of that after October 31. What it loses is the corner of Bedford Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard, which Crustacean turned into a destination three decades ago.

What October looks like at 468 N. Bedford

The closing date has already moved once. The building changed hands earlier this year and the lease wasn't renewed, so the An family first announced July 29 as the last night of service. Eater LA reported that a lease extension came through after that announcement and pushed the final date to Halloween. "Thanks to your outpouring of love, we got an extension!" the restaurant posted on Instagram, as quoted by the Beverly Press.

Here's the schedule as the Times and Eater reported it:

1. July 29: the original last night, kept as a pause so the team could regroup.
2. August 5: dine-in reopens at limited capacity because of staffing.
3. September 30: the last day of dine-in service.
4. October 1 through October 31: takeout and special events only, through the end of the lease.

That puts this month in the takeout phase. Under the announced plan, the dining room that hosted thirty years of birthdays and anniversaries closed with September. The Beverly Press piece said reservations would run through the end of September, which matches. The restaurant's Insider Club page offers members 15% off every takeout order, not counting tax and service charge.

Day-to-day hours aren't in any recent reporting, and the restaurant's homepage now shows a "Thank you for 30 wonderful years!" banner without a closing date. For one last order of noodles from Bedford Drive, check crustaceanbh.com before you go.

A recipe built to travel

The food has always been the part of Crustacean least tied to the address. The family kept its best-known dishes in what it calls the secret kitchen. That's a separate corner of the kitchen where, according to Eater LA, only a handful of staff were allowed in, to protect the recipes. The dinner menu still marks AN's Famous Garlic Noodles and the garlic roasted Dungeness crab as coming "from the secret kitchen."

When the recipes are guarded that closely, they can move to a new kitchen with the people who know them. The family has also opened restaurants in new cities before. As the Los Angeles Times tells it, Helene An helped turn her mother-in-law's Italian deli in San Francisco into Thanh Long, which the paper calls the first Vietnamese restaurant in that city. Crustacean San Francisco followed in 1991, and Beverly Hills came six years later. Eater dates Thanh Long to 1971. Accounts of the Beverly Hills opening year differ. The Times puts it at 1997, the Beverly Press at 1995, and Eater says the lease was signed in 1996. Everyone agrees on about thirty years on Bedford Drive.

The noodles have also left the dining room before. During the pandemic, the family ran a takeout format called Noods, which the Times mentions in its account of the restaurant's history. The family's restaurant group, House of AN, still runs Crustacean in San Francisco, Thanh Long in San Francisco, Tiato in Santa Monica and AnQi in Orange County. It also caters private events.

The Smithsonian has called Helene An "the mother of fusion cuisine," and she has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. Her cooking has a long career ahead of it with or without 468 N. Bedford.

What stays on Bedford Drive

The building and the room stay behind, and the room is what changed this part of Beverly Hills.

Helene An described the corner as it looked when she arrived. "This location, there was nothing," she told the Los Angeles Times. In the 1990s, the Bedford Drive corner held medical offices and a Rite Aid. The Times reports that Elizabeth An suggested hosting charitable events to introduce the food to new neighbors. Over the years that followed, the paper says, Crustacean "brought a pulse to the once-quiet corner."

The room did that work. Eater describes a walkway over a koi pond set beneath a glass floor, the kind of entrance a first-time guest remembers. The Times interview took place on the second floor, which looks out over the dining room.

The family once tried to secure the corner for good. According to the Times, they made an offer on the building in the early 2000s and were outbid by the landlord who went on to own it until this year. Elizabeth An told the paper that buying it then wasn't financially feasible. Eater's account of that offer is the same.

What comes next for the building is still unknown. The coverage so far doesn't name the buyer, give a sale price or point to a city filing. The Beverly Press reports Elizabeth An's comment to Fox 11 that the new owner has different plans for the site. Until those plans are public, the most that can be said is that a corner that held medical offices and a Rite Aid before 1997 will be something new after Halloween.

Crustacean isn't the only well-known Beverly Hills dining room to close this year. Eater's July closures roundup lists Nerano as closing its Beverly Hills restaurant on July 26, 2026.

Where the noodles go after Halloween

None of the next stops are confirmed yet, so treat everything below as plans the family has described publicly.

Tiato is the closest of these for most Beverly Hills households, since it's on the Westside. The Insider Club promises AN's Famous Garlic Noodles and AN's Famous Garlic Roasted Dungeness Crab "& more" at the pop-ups. A permanent home in Pasadena or Calabasas would put the restaurant on the far side of a freeway drive. A meal that used to be a stroll down Bedford would become a planned evening out. The Times reports that Elizabeth An hopes to find a new Los Angeles location.

The family's statement to the Times explained why the extension mattered to them. "We could not be more grateful for this extra time to properly thank our loyal guests and community for 30 wonderful years, and to give our team members the respectful transition they deserve," Elizabeth An said. The Times added that Helene An's granddaughter, Bosilika An, called supporting longtime staff through the closure the family's priority.

For the next few weeks the takeout window is open, and October 31 is the announced last day at 468 N. Bedford Drive.

Long-loved places like Crustacean are a big part of what makes this corner of Beverly Hills feel like home. At Marlyse Scherr, we keep track of changes like this one, and we're happy to talk about what's changing on your block and nearby. Let's Connect.