Well, dear readers, the response to yesterday’s visual essay was so overwhelming – not merely whelming, mind you, but OVERwhelming – that I thought we’d do more of the same today and hopefully I’ll have time to get all these scans cropped in time to get the notes posted by midnight. In other words, I will be burning the midnight oil and then I will have burnt oil – what I’ll do with the burnt oil is anyone’s guess. So, for today, I have scanned lots of menus of eateries that I frequented as a young sprig of a twig of a tad of a lad of a youth – from my boyhood to my teen hood, not necessarily in that order. So, we begin our restaurant journey with my father’s – dear reader Jane asked if I had anything else related to my father’s restaurant, the Kiru. I do have a wonderful ashtray but there’s no way to scan an ashtray. So, instead I have scanned this lunch menu – I have been unsuccessful so far in tracking down a Kiru menu that looked like what I remember the menu looking like. This one is a lunch menu and probably dates from the late 1950s, at least that’s what the prices would indicate. I can’t imagine it would be later than that, although some of the sandwiches are more money than many other restaurants were charging in the late 1950s – so, a bit of a mystery. But here’s the cover of the menu.
Plain, you see. The menu I remember had a drawing of the front of the building on it and was pinkish in color. Here’s a page from the inside of the menu. The steak sandwich was one of the most popular dishes at the Kiru. I don’t know of any place in LA today, outside of maybe the Smoke House, where they serve a steak sandwich.
Finally, sometime in the early 1960s, my father had Kiru playing cards made. They came two packs in a plastic holder. Cousin Alan gave me the set a few years ago – still in the plastic holder and the two decks of cards still sealed. Here’s the back of the playing card and this is what was on the front of the menu that I remember.
Anyone who’s read the first Kritzer book knows of my enduring love for Kentucky Boys hamburgers, the first hamburger I ever remember eating. I can taste it now, that’s how strong the memory of it is. I went there so often – alone, with my brother. The building sat on the northeast corner of Pico and Sherbourne – we lived just three blocks down from there on Sherbourne, so it was just a quick walk. It was a classic diner building and it’s still there exactly as it was, only now it’s a mortuary! Can you believe it? Finding anything related to Kentucky Boys has been nigh unto impossible, but I finally found a matchbook on eBay, so you can kind of see what the building looked like. At an antiques show here in LA about seven years ago I walked into a dealer booth that had some art, just to look around and do you know what I found there? The original architect’s rendering of Kentucky Boys. The dealer had no idea what it was. What are the chances? What are the odds? I snapped it up, of course, and it’s framed and hanging in my house. Here is the matchbook cover, followed by a photo of how it looks today as a mortuary. All you have to do is imagine the front doors and the Kentucky Boys sign.
We had two great Cantonese jernts near us, both on Pico Blvd. Wan-Q was a block or so east of La Cienega and we ate there quite often. Here’s the front of their wonderful menu.
But our favorite was Kowloon, which was on Pico west of La Cienega, near Shenandoah. Kowloon was beloved by all, and we frequently saw movie people there – the one I remember vividly because he was just so handsome and suave was Cesar Romero. Here’s the front of their menu. Our favorites there were the appetizers of fried shrimp, pork, and spare ribs. The chow mein was also yummilicious.
We had several classic coffee shops in LA, and one I was quite fond of was Biff’s – here’s their menu cover. This branch was on Wilshire Blvd.
Yesterday, I posted the photo of Ontra Cafeteria. Here is the little comments card you could fill out – there are three locations mentioned and I ate regularly at each. Cindy Williams and I used to gorge ourselves silly at the Hollywood location, which was just north of Hollywood Blvd. on Vine on the west side of the street.
Moving into my teen years, one of my favorite hangouts became Diamond Jim’s in Hollywood. I would eat there at least once a week on my journeys to Hollywood, whether seeing West Side Story repeatedly, or Ben-Hur or King of Kings or Mutiny on the Bounty or even just visiting Pickwick Books which was just across the street on the same side. Diamond Jim’s was located one block east of Highland on the northwest corner of Hollywood Blvd. I always had either the spaghetti and meatballs or, most often, the shrimp Louis and garlic bread. I wrote about this jernt a lot in Kritzerland. You’ll see there’s a Wilshire Blvd. branch – never ate at that one, but they also opened on in Sherman Oaks on Sepulveda just south of Ventura Blvd., and I did eat there several times.
At some point in the mid-to-late 1960s I became a regular diner at the Hamburger Hamlet, mostly the one in Westwood, but also branching out over the next years to Sherman Oaks (one of the only Hamlets left), Hollywood, Culver City, and Brentwood. Their original menus were so much fun and huge, contained in a binder and you’d flip the pages over. I always had the Lobster Bisque (“Famous for This”), and a burger. Here’s the cover of their original menu, which is about eight to ten pages long.
I was never a Bob’s Big Boy person when I was a kid. There weren’t any near us and I frankly don’t ever remember driving to far off Burbank or San Fernando or Van Nuys to go to one. Oh, I’d heard of it and I was intrigued by it, certainly. But in the late 60s, I began going to the Burbank branch and I absolutely loved the Big Boy combo add avocado, and their little shrimp salad with Eyetalian dressing. When my daughter arrived, Bob’s was the place we always went – in Van Nuys, on Sherman Way, in Burbank. I was lucky enough to find a classic Bob’s menu from just that era – the prices are exactly as I remember them – they haven’t had the tiny shrimp salad thing in decades, but I scanned both the outside and the inside so you could see proof that it existed. And take special note of those late 60s prices. Well, the scanner cut off the Big Boy price – one Big Boy was sixty cents.
When I began working in TV, I worked many times at Paramount – if you’ve read the first memoir you know that. It was then, right in 1970 that I discovered the joys of Nickodell’s on Melrose, just west of the studio (it’s now the main gate – go know. I loved Nickodell’s. They had the best eggs benedict EVER, and they made a truly authentic Casesar salad right at the table. I ate there all the time all the way through the 70s and 80s. It’s much missed by the likes of me.
And finally, not restaurant related, this wacky and weird find – I’m probably the only person on the planet who has one of these: It’s a blank, unused payroll check from Pacific Ocean Park. Can you believe it?
I must say, doing these little trips back in time are really fun. Of course, the notes were supposed to be posted five minutes ago, so I’ll now hurry through the rest of them.
Yesterday was quite a busy day, most of it consumed with this new project that is now on the fast track. I did the track list for it, had a huge number of e-mail volleys about it with several people, saw a possible cover design, which I didn’t like so I asked for two alternates, one of which did exactly what I wanted it to do, so that’s the one. All of that took up the entire morning with no time for a jog, and then I went and had some chicken tenders for my meal, after which I picked up a package, did some banking and came back home.
Then I finally did the three-mile jog. I then had to listen to some songs for the August Kritzerland show, then I set our final cast member, who is new dear reader Robert Yacko. I’ll let you know the full cast as soon as we figure out our guest star. Then I watched some of the film that the score for our new project is from – it was available for free streaming on amazon, only amazon was being retarded and kept stopping and loading and loading and stopping and I finally got fed up and will go to the garage and find the damn DVD today. I did figure out my approach to the liner notes, which I have to start and finish today.
By the time I finished with everything, it was already too late to watch a motion picture, but I did watch the first thirty minutes of the Japanese film Goyokin, directed by Hideo Gosha. Having watched Gosha’s Three Outlaw Samurai last week, I wanted to revisit Goyokin – it’s such a good movie and the DVD looks pretty good. Then I scanned and had two long telephonic calls.
Today, I shall do a jog, I shall write liner notes, I shall eat, I shall hopefully pick up some packages, I shall write some checks, and do stuff.
Tomorrow is more of the same, prepping our next release (packaging is in for approval and I can only hope the mastering guy is working away on it and that he’ll be finished by Thursday or so), we’re shipping CDs on Thursday, and I have a few meetings and meals to do. I don’t have a clew as to what’s happening on the weekend.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, write, eat, hopefully pick up packages, write, finish liner notes, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Let’s hear your favorite restaurant stories from your youth – I know we did some yesterday but more is better. Also, what were your favorite jernts when you were a teen and then what kind of jernts did you favor when you got into your 20s? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall not be burning the midnight oil anymore.