How to make Bar Betsy’s tomato and Gaviota strawberry salad

Two doors from the restaurant Betsy in Altadena sits its little sister, Bar Betsy, an all-day café.

Owner Tyler Wells called it his “dream of the European idea of an all-day place where you can have coffee, a glass of wine, a snack or a pastry.”

“In Europe, you go to a place, and there’s one guy there all day, and that’s, I mean, I’m that guy, but we also have a wonderful staff,” he explained. “I think, particularly in Altadena, people are craving a place to go, a place to be. It’s just a little home base. It’s a place you can almost like check in, go grab a coffee. We have people we see sometimes four times a day, and it’s just an absolute dream.”

The restaurant Betsy opened one month before the Eaton Fire in January of 2025. Wells had just moved into a new house on Jan. 2, five days before the deadly wildfire. That home, unfortunately, burned down.

“I had to close the restaurant,” he explained. “My life went from pretty normal to just completely untethered. I was just so lost, and it just sort of sent me reeling. And what I’m realizing this much time later is that it really gave me an opportunity to make only intentional decisions, and so I tried to leave L.A. I tried to move and try to figure out what I really wanted to do, and it became so clear that this is my home, and this is where I’m supposed to be.”

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From that lesson, Wells reopened Betsy six months ago, and his entire staff returned, which he said was “instrumental” in making sure “it happened again.”

“They called me every day and said, ‘Hey, let’s open the restaurant, let’s open the restaurant,’ and at first it was a terrible idea until it wasn’t, and I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful they did. I’m so grateful they’re still here. I’m so grateful we get the opportunity to do this and be a part of the community and rebuild in as we are,” he said.

The intimate eatery seats 40 people and is described as a “lovely little energetic, vibrant neighborhood restaurant on the hill.”

Regardless of the setback, Wells praised the communities of Altadena and Pasadena.

“Here, this is, without question, the greatest community I’ve ever known in my life. I thought, when we reopened the restaurant after the fires, we’d get a few people here and there, and likely it wouldn’t work, and the outpouring of support from the whole city, but primarily the community, Altadena, Pasadena. I’m so humbled,” he exclaimed. “I knew this was the greatest town anywhere I’ve only ever wanted to live here since I’ve been in L.A., but I had no idea until I saw the resilience of the community, and just felt the support and the love, and just such a magic place.”

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Betsy is named after Wells’ mother, who passed away 19 years ago.

“(I) just couldn’t have had a more supportive mother,” he explained. “I was not a great student; I was a skateboarder. I was kind of a punk. I had dumb haircuts, and she just always believed in me, and always knew that everything would be fine, all my crazy ideas. She just supported it, and she didn’t quite get to see this happen, but I think she knew, thinks she knew it’s gonna be all right.”

While he said he wasn’t “raised in a gourmet family,” there was “always food on the table.” He has fond memories of Sunday dinners with his mom, “always cooking.”

“There are a handful of things that I remember from being a kid, the cobbler being one of them. We used to pick blackberries on a friend’s mountain in West Virginia, and I remember that cobbler just being around a couple of times a year, and it being the greatest thing ever,” he said.

From these memories, he started to appreciate food “as a place to gather,” which he still believes in to this day.

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Wells did attend culinary school “years and years ago,” and while he “cooked for a little bit,” he stopped and “did 100 other things.” However, those things led him to where he is today.

“Everything I’ve done has been driving towards hospitality and a hospitable approach to everything I’ve done. All those things made me happy, because you could create something for someone, and I realized that I love food, I’m passionate about agriculture, and I just absolutely love people, and so it’s just the natural intersection of all those things,” he said.

For his establishments, Wells focuses on simplicity but with high-quality ingredients. He said they work with farmers who really respect the land.

As for the menus at his restaurants, Wells said they want to make food that tastes good, that patrons can understand and want to eat.

“We always say it’s food you can cook at home, but a little bit better,” he said.

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While serving the neighborhood with fantastic menus, Wells is also giving back. He and his staff have built a nursery behind a hardware store that was lost in the fire. They cleaned up the area and created a raised bed garden, which they tend to on afternoons, evenings and whenever they have free time.

“It’s been so fun,” he gushed. “We built a bunch of containers, raised beds, put down some decomposed granite, built a big fence around it, hung some string lights, and we have this beautiful oasis where we can host dinners, new winemaker dinners, showcase some farmers, or just throw a summer barbecue, and it’s just such a beautiful little outdoor place to be.”

The garden is coming along. Right now, the herbs are blooming, but they’ve planted tomatoes and peppers, which Wells calls “a little salsa garden.” The purpose is to plant the produce they use constantly, and Bar Betsy is heavy on the produce. The eatery’s menu is described as “daytime café fare,” which leans on simple, healthy, light bites. All baked goods are made in-house, especially their pecan sticky buns, which are whipped up every day.

Since opening Bar Betsy, Wells had a request for the menu. He wanted a cured smoked salmon cream cheese, which they make on rye bread with rye berries from the Tehachapi Grain Project.

With summer just around the corner, Wells is embracing the flavors of the season with his love of fresh produce by sharing his tomato and Gaviota strawberry salad recipe with California Cooking viewers.