The first thing the website for Memphis restaurant tells you is that its location, the historic Janes House on Hollywood Blvd, was once a school for the children of celebrities (Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, most notably) until it was “rescued” by its current inhibitors. The website claims that founding partner Richard Heyman “…has been building restaurants for over 25 years….From San Diego’s ‘Gas Lamp’ district, to San Francisco, to the now re-glamorized Hollywood Boulevard, Heyman has left an indelible stamp on the neighborhoods he has helped revive.” The cockiness of the mission statement, however, is nothing compared to the hubris of the wait staff, management and owners, who assert their ascension to the Los Angeles restaurant hierarchy as if it were an entitlement, not an honor that has to actually be earned. And as for the so-called re-glamorization of Hollywood Boulevard, the dentally-challenged homeless man staggering around out front and incessantly yelling, “Fuck you, Mel Gibson!” while hurling quarters at my friend’s car hardly speaks of a glittering, urban make-over. His antics, unfortunately, were the highlight of a thoroughly grim evening.
It seems little has changed since the bratty kids of Hollywood’s elite tore through the halls of the Dutch Colonial Revival structure–only now they’ve brought television cameras. The show being recorded at Memphis is to be called “Sons of Hollywood”, but I didn’t learn that until the end of the evening, when a grip confessed the title. The hostess whom I asked earlier, after the crew had been there for hours, was utterly clueless. All she knew was that it was for a show on a network called “A &…” She paused, scrunching her lip, determined to wrestle that final letter from the recesses of her pitifully taxed brain. “E,” she blurted proudly. The bright lights and boom operators who clogged the entranceway proved to be a more ominous sign than the $8 parking fee posted at the valet stand. TV cameras are always annoying, but seem especially affronting in a restaurant. The film crew, though small, managed to be everywhere I wanted to go during the evening. I slipped into one of the two unisex lavatories and there they were, recording every second of some B-list has-been’s black-sheep son on his trip to the can. In searching for my party upon arrival, the camera crew blocked the narrow entrance to the dark, cramped bar area. One courteous female producer (did I just write that?) saw my plight and scurried out of the way apologetically. It was the nicest treatment I would receive all night.
Not seeing my friends in the bar or on the outside patio, I pushed through to the hostess station and inquired as to the whereabouts of our party of eight.
“You’re the first one here,” the lovely hostess told me. “Would you like to be seated?” I was ten minutes late and my friends were always early. There was no way in hell I was the first to arrive. I said my friend’s name again. She re-checked her screen, now aided by the young, suited manager.
“They’re in the bar,” he informed me. Having just made eye contact with all six people in the bar–people who were not my friends–I told him he was mistaken. Re-check of screen, more lip-scrunching. Keep in mind, my friends had been seated no more than ten minutes earlier and, TV crew aside, the place was not busy. Bad signs aplenty. “Ah yes,” he said finally, mispronouncing my friend’s absurdly un-challenging name, and gestured for the hostess to escort me and my date outside. On the journey to our table, I began to see what the confusion was about.
Crammed shamefully to the side edge of the property–saying we were still on the patio would be a stretching of nomenclature even a realtor would find dicey–our sad, dark table offered a thrilling vista of discarded shelving, unused space heaters and whatever else was deemed too trivial, unnecessary or hideous to occupy a spot inside. Poor little space heaters, I knew just how they felt. As our party was a group of eight men and no women–and whoever does the hiring at Memphis clearly likes attractive women–my first thought was that our seating assignment was a bit of the “stick the gays in the back” hostility that Barney’s Beanery inexplicably gets away with to this day. But on the way to our table we had passed an even bigger pack of homos seated prominently up front, so at least I could rule out social bigotry. There was no lighting for us, just two pathetic candles with which to navigate the menu. The reminder that there was a $40 minimum per person and a 20% gratuity for parties of six or more was perfectly easy to read, however, unlike any descriptions of the southern-style fare. The same reminder leaps out at you on the website as well.
Memphis loves its little rules–like “no shorts.” Okay, that one’s fair enough. I believe shorts, like baseball caps, are best left out of any restaurant with a classiness-factor anywhere north of Applebee’s. Two of the guys in our group, in the dead of a heat wave, wore shorts to dinner. I wouldn’t do it myself, but the act hardly seems worthy of banishment to an area not quite restaurant, yet not quite kitchen–just some amorphous dead zone where any second I was certain a harried prep cook was going to fling a basket of discarded chicken guts out the window and onto our table. Or better yet, some waiter on his break was going to plop down on the steps two feet behind my chair and dig into his reasonably price-reduced bowl of gumbo. There was barely enough light for us to see one another, but every few seconds a busboy with arms laden would burst through the door from the kitchen, blinding us with the fluorescent death-rays that emanate from the dishwashing station. I asked my friends why they hadn’t demanded to be seated elsewhere. My dear friend Alan, a true mensch who had made the reservation and was generously treating us to dinner, informed me that Mr. Snooty-Suit had tried to seat us in the upstairs section, a wasteland far, far from the action. When Alan reminded the manager that he had specifically requested the patio when he booked the table, the suit grudgingly obliged (with zero regard for the fact that Alan is, in restaurant parlance, or the parlance of any service-based business, a regular, a whale, a very, very good and loyal customer). But this didn’t matter to the manager. He dumped us in the alley and acted like he was doing us a favor. Did I mention the joint was nearly empty?
Memphis touts, as part of its cool aesthetic, the showing of old movies on the wall of the adjacent building, but we wouldn’t have known due to the two enormous fichus plants separating our eye-sore storage space from the proper dining area.
Memphis, just like Geisha House, Katana, Sterling, Boa–the list is upsettingly long–tries to provide a classy, high-end dining experience to the Entourage set, but in truth doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you leave dissatisfied or never come back. Memphis and its overpriced ilk think that raping your wallet, while subjecting you to the brand of humiliating rudeness usually only doled out by the doormen at Bungalow 8, can buy cache and credibility. But, as we can see from that house in Hancock Park with the 32 matching miniature statues of David neatly aligned in the front yard, credibility and class cannot be bought. So going back to the “No shorts” policy. If you are Patina, and know how to run a restaurant for grown-ups, then send me away if I show up in cut-offs. But if you can’t get the basics right, if your customers are eating in darkness within whiffing distance of the dumpsters, if the waitress says, “Lemme check,” when asked which Pinot Noir she prefers, if you’re going to slap a 20% mandatory gratuity on large parties when every other restaurant in town goes with a discretionary 15%, then your service and food better kick ass. If dress code were truly commensurate with a restaurant’s merit, diners at Memphis should be able to saunter up to the hostess stand in beach thongs and Speedos.
Now back to our meal…
Memphis heralds itself as a restaurant/bar/lounge and manages to fail spectacularly at all three ventures. (The “lounge” aspect seemed little more than a DJ station set up next to the host stand, playing violently loud club music that got increasingly more irritating as the meal progressed.) My drink order was simple, yet specific: a Stoli with a splash of soda and lime. What I received was a glass of soda water with a shot of vodka buried somewhere within. The lime request was either forgotten or deemed unworthy of attention. As we ordered our food, I asked the waitress quite nicely if she would bring me a side of lime wedges for my drink. She agreed.
It was the last any of us would see of her for over thirty minutes. Busboys would bring our appetizers, but claimed they were not allowed to order drinks from the bar when we asked to have our neglected glasses refilled. A request to have our server located was answered with an enthusiastic “Ok,” and then quickly forgotten. One of my friends went twice to find her, or a manager, or anyone. Finally the server returned after our entrees were served, claiming that a big party of 20 had been seated and had demanded her attention. “They said we’re all about teamwork here, but I guess not,” she offered ambiguously.
After repeated requests for the manager to anyone within earshot, the Suit shuffled over with the patronizing exasperation usually reserved for a parent’s dealing with an incorrigible child. “What is it now?” he had the nerve to say, before squatting down next to Alan and speaking in a voice so low the rest of us could not hear–as if only the guy who makes the dinner reservation warrants his time. For about ten minutes Alan calmly recounted the meal’s progress–or lack thereof–up to that point, while the manager nodded with phony and ponderous thoughtfulness. When Alan had finished, the manager asked the table meekly, “Anything else?” as though by allowing us to vent, he was helping us to heal ourselves. That’s when I suggested that the table at which he chose to seat us was probably not on par with the other tables in the restaurant. Again a thoughtful nod, this time with a gentle, wizened chin-stroking. “Tell me what you want me to do for you,” he asked Alan, who, like any man of class and character, said there was nothing specific he wanted–no bounty or price tag on the restaurant’s offences. He simply wanted to express his disappointment and let the manager take any action to remedy the situation that he saw fit. Never had a visit from a manager made an entire table feel so much worse about their dining experience than they had before. The waitress appeared later to announce, without a hint of sincerity, that we would be receiving a free round of drinks. Perhaps we did, the bill made it unclear. But what is clear is that the manager took Alan’s “Nothing” far too literally.
On the way out, one of our party asked the manager for his name. “Rusty,” he said, smiling.
“What’s your last name?” my friend asked. At this, Rusty’s smile faded considerably.
“Morrone,” he said.
Thanks for giving me my title. (My sincere apologies to all readers of Italian descent for my incredibly cheap shot.)
Normally an $8 valet fee would cause me to grouse. But the guys curbside were so courteous, efficient and professional that I paid happily, finally glad that the level of service matched the price.
Memphis. 6451 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028. Bring a wad a cash, low standards, ear plugs, a flashlight to read your menu, and a Kevlar vest able to withstand serious attitude.
Posted by Aaron Black at 4:56 PM