Cafe 50's

When Nicole and I went to the midnight show of Tron at the Nuart theater recently, she won a gift certificate to Cafe 50's a few blocks west on Santa Monica Blvd.The gift certificate expires today so we visited for dinner last night.

To avoid rush hour freeway traffic, we took my mom’s suggestion of taking the 101 freeway to the Santa Monica Blvd. exit and driving all the way there from Hollywood. The experience was like cantos from Dante.

I knew that the Hollywood section of Santa Monica Blvd. was non-stop tableaus of urban roadkill. It inspired my story “Eyelashes of the Damned”. Miles of buildings that had never been clean or new. After that was the brief Russian quarter, comic relief. My eyes perked up at the sight of Russian words and began translating for Nicole.

John: “That building is a yule- jewel- jewelry- Jewelry Store!”

Nicole: “Yes. That’s what the sign says in English right above the Russian.”

Pretty soon we were in West Hollywood. Economic quality of life looked to increase dramatically. Men roaming in pairs. Hillcrest has always been the San Diego equivalent and there is a restaurant there called Hamburger Mary’s. Turns out there is a Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood too.

Next we were in Beverly Hills. I recalled the elder days, the mid-eighties, when the Banana Republic store on Rodeo Drive was the only one in Los Angeles. I could never bring myself to settle down in Beverly Hills, but I like to look at it.

Finally we arrived in Santa Monica. Passed the Nuart Theater and Delores’ 24 hour restaurant across the street (I am determined to visit there someday in the middle of the night). Parking can be very difficult to find in Santa Monica.

When we finally got to Café 50’s it was night. Inside the restaurant was very lively. Café 50’s has theme nights, and last night was pajama night. For me it was Boba Fett night, because of the “Tron” association, but many other folk were wearing pajamas. Lots of 1950s paraphernalia on the walls, movie ads.

Nicole got a sandwich and I got a cheeseburger and a vanilla coke. I could only finish half of my dinner and it left me feeling like I’m been eating lead puffs. Nicole got a piece of cherry pie for dessert. She’s wanted a piece of cherry pie since she started watching “Twin Peaks” on our honeymoon. It didn’t look exactly like the cherry pie on “Twin Peaks”, but at least it was diner pie and it tasted pretty good.