He’s the Westside’s Clark Kent.
One moment, mild-mannered psychotherapist Todd Bursaw is helping clients navigate the ups and downs of their busy lives. The next, he’s armed with a keyboard and a phone camera, assuming the alter ego of “Toddrickallen” — stealth, sharp-eyed chronicler of dining news.
“There really isn’t anyone else doing exactly what I am doing,” says Bursaw, who keeps the 10,000 or so weekly readers of Toddrickallen.com up to date on the latest restaurant openings, closings and special events.
“Since COVID, my focus has become extremely local. I cover Beverly Hills, Century City, Santa Monica, Brentwood … and sometimes the South Bay.”
Old school reporting
Bursaw’s “scoops” are often hiding in plain sight — “Coming Soon” banners affixed to the side of a building or a liquor license application taped to a window. He also relies on a cadre of loyal readers who submit photos and help investigate the comings and goings at commercial properties around the city.
The website was launched in 2007 after Bursaw attended a local community event for aspiring writers.
“It started out more as a travel thing,” he tells The Sun. “I just wanted to write something, so I took a course on how to start a blog and got a WordPress account. I started writing about travel because I travel a lot, but nobody really wanted to read that..”
But everyone, it turns out, does love to read about new places to eat.
At the time, Bursaw was living in Santa Monica and commuting between offices in Beverly Hills and Hawthorne.
“Driving between those three areas, I noticed I could see which restaurants were opening and closing across a big swath of the city,” he remembers.
Keeping it simple
Two decades later, his formula hasn’t changed much: a simple exterior photo and five or six lines of text usually get the job done.
That apparent simplicity masks a surprisingly old-school reporting operation.
While much of today’s food media is built on glossy press releases, sponsored Instagram reels, and media tastings, Bursaw is still out there doing what neighborhood gumshoes once did: walking the blocks, checking windows, looking for clues and listening to the locals.
He doesn’t have (or need) need a branded tote bag, an expense-account dinner or an invite to the velvet-rope opening night.
“I usually wait until there’s concrete physical evidence — like a window sign or an ABC permit application — before writing about a spot,” he says. “Deals fall through all the time.”
For Bursaw, the work is less about becoming the loudest voice in the room than filling a local-information void.
“At the beginning, I’d park in Beverly Hills and spend an extra 15 minutes before appointments walking around to catch stories,” he says. “My original goal was to post three times a week just to set a bar for myself and show up for readers. I didn’t expect people to actually read it, but it grew from there.”
Now, those readers are part of the machine.
“Every once in a while, a reader will reach out wanting to contribute and send pictures of new storefronts,” he says. “But I always make sure the news is fresh.”
Bursaw says he is regularly offered free meals, perks and other foodie-world niceties. But he mostly turns them down.
“I don’t want a quid-pro-quo situation,” he says. “I like to keep it clean. I also never do reviews and I don’t write disparaging things about businesses.”
Instead, his site is more of a friendly neighborhood bulletin board — if the bulletin board had better intel than most commercial real-estate brokers.
“My goal is to support local businesses,” Bursaw says. “Especially smaller spots that don’t get much press.”
Signs of life on the Westside
That doesn’t mean he ignores the broader changes remaking Santa Monica’s dining landscape. Bursaw sees signs of life in places that have spent years struggling to regain their pre-pandemic footing.
“Montana Avenue is doing great,” he says. “Downtown Santa Monica has been struggling, but there’s a big renewed push to bring in new places. There are five or six new restaurants planned around the Third Street Promenade.”
He is also watching Main Street, where new names are beginning to fill long-empty spaces, and Westwood, where commercial corridors appear to be getting another look.
“I suspect there’s a big push across the Westside to revitalize commercial strips ahead of the Olympics,” he says.
The man behind the name
The site’s success didn’t make Bursaw a celebrity — at least not in the usual sense.
In fact, this hyper-local community fixture has walked among us largely unnoticed. He doesn’t lean heavily on social media. And he doesn’t plaster his face on the site.
“‘Toddrick’ isn’t even my first name,” he admits.
“Years ago, before I became a therapist, I worked in residential treatment and the kids called me Toddrick. ‘Allen’ is my middle name. When I took that blogging class and needed a name [for the site], I just typed it in without thinking much about it.”
Today, “Toddrickallen” remains an accidental journalist — powered by curiosity, sidewalk reconnaissance and a community that likes knowing what is happening down the block.
No cape. No superpowers. Just Todd Bursaw, hiding in plain sight.
“I guess I’m a bit of a mystery,” he says.
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