Everything You Need To Know About A Restaurant You Can Learn From Their Bathrooms
Broadway Deli, Santa Monica, a restaurant we won't be hurrying back to.
Incomprehensibly, you now need a token to get into the bathroom, which I most inconveniently had to go back from the bathroom and get.
First, I tried the counter. "Get it from your server," one of the guys behind the counter told me. Our server was nowhere to be seen, and we were about to be late to the movies, so I marched up the aisle through the city block-length restaurant, probably to the tune of the Margaret Hamilton-on-the-bike music from The Wizard of Oz (Gregg was silently laughing at the sight of me), and I got a token from the maitre d'.
Oh yeah...I guess the cleaning and toilet paper-replacing people were out of tokens.
It's the Promenade. The home of the homeless and all that.
Crid
at March 15, 2008 12:49 AM
We used to go there before the movies for a glass of wine and a snack at the little wine bar. It was never fantastic, but it was doable. Not any more.
And I hate the Promenade, but sometimes, it's the closest and easiest option for a flick.
Amy Alkon
at March 15, 2008 12:55 AM
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
Crid
at March 15, 2008 2:50 AM
Eww... are those rugs around the toilets?
Mary at March 15, 2008 7:33 AM
Yeah. And be glad you can't see the toilet seats.
Amy Alkon
at March 15, 2008 8:16 AM
Ugh. I used to really like Broadway Deli (it's where the hubster and I had our first date) but it really started going downhill a few years ago. I haven't been there in a couple of years.
deja pseu
at March 15, 2008 4:19 PM
Wise move!
Another restaurant we really like lost their maitre d' about a year ago to a new hotel, and hired some young jerk in his place. We recently realized how much of our fondness for the place was connected to this guy running it. Matteo's, in Westwood, wisely hired a guy named Kevin who used to run some other classic Italian joint in Glendale. He just "gets it"...what to do, how to be, how to make guests feel comfortable, which makes going there an experience you feel good about.
You can get great takeout in a lot of places. Restaurant owners should keep that in mind.
Amy Alkon at March 15, 2008 4:34 PM
c'mon Amy write a column on it, and send the copy to the owner... otherwise no change. maybe little change anyway.
SwissArmyD
at March 15, 2008 5:16 PM
We've been meaning to get to Matteo's; now I'll definitely make a point of it.
deja pseu
at March 16, 2008 4:52 PM
I don't see why it's being stated that there was no toilet paper. There is some on floor.
Norman
at March 17, 2008 1:06 AM
should say "the floor"
Norman
at March 17, 2008 1:08 AM
"should say 'the floor'"
Thought at first the scare quotes were around "the floor" for the sake of irony. From what I can see of it, they might as well have been.
old rpm daddy
at March 17, 2008 7:42 AM
We got it without the scare quotes. Funny.
Amy Alkon
at March 17, 2008 7:53 AM
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