What's the Deal With the Mauro Café Protestors On Melrose?

If anyone needs proof that politics and pasta don’t mix, drive down Melrose Avenue to the former Fred Segal/Ron Herman space and take in the unrelenting protests outside Mauro Café, the cute little blue and white eatery that, until recently, was a WeHo celebrity haunt.

The controversy around Mauro owner Evelyne Joan began when she was spotted in a keffiyeh among the protestors who blocked congregants from entering the Adas Torah synagogue in Pico-Robertson on June 23, sparking a melee in which at least 11 people were injured.

Canary Mission, a website that aims to expose antisemitism, posted a video of a woman with a megaphone who appears to be Joan screaming at LAPD officers trying to clear the area: “Your mothers would be ashamed of you! You’re hitting women!”

The video was shared extensively among Jewish Angelenos online, and the backlash against the Melrose District restaurant has been fervent. Boycotts have been organized; some regulars have left. It got worse a few weeks later after a sidewalk exchange posted on Instagram: A man wearing a yarmulke, filmed as he enters Mauro, exits a short time later and reports he has been denied service. An employee of the restaurant repeatedly asks him to leave.

The contentiousness widened after a post purportedly written by Mauro Corbia, one of the original owners of the restaurant, on the Mauro Café page, which has since been closed to comments. The post alleges that Joan — Corbia’s sister-in-law — had manipulated Corbia out of both the restaurant and his name after chef Roberto Corbia, Mauro’s brother, died in a motorcycle accident. The post states Mauro Corbia “couldn’t get the funds to buy [Joan] out,” and that he made a deal to sell in 2010 “under distress.”

“Evelyne Joan took advantage of everything I created and worked for, due to the death of my brother,” the post continues, adding that Fred Segal, who was Jewish, gave him a chance to follow his dreams and open his Italian café.

Joan did not respond to a request for comment on the protests or on the Instagram allegations.