Good morning.
(Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.)
If you are among the significant number of people who’ve seen Quentin Tarantino’s latest love letter to a bygone era, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” then you’ve seen the Musso & Frank Grill.
It’s the spot where Leonardo DiCaprio’s and Brad Pitt’s characters commiserate about their lives over a whiskey sour and a bloody Mary. They also share an emotional moment in the restaurant’s parking lot as they wait for the valet, and a Musso & Frank sign looms prominently over their heads.
It’s clear Mr. Tarantino has an affection for the place, which will have been open for a century on Sept. 27, and has been a favored industry haunt for almost that entire time.
I had never been to Musso’s myself. So on a recent warm afternoon, I met Mark Echeverria, Musso’s chief operating officer, in the original dining room there for lunch.
I was, of course, interested in the celebrity lore and curious about what it was like to have one of the world’s most famous filmmakers take over your business for almost a week. (Mr. Tarantino, according to Mr. Echeverria, treated Musso’s like a palace and the staff members like kings while they were shut down for filming.)
But what fascinated me more was how — in a world where restaurants run on notoriously razor-thin profit margins — Musso’s had managed to stay open for 100 years, without consultant-prescribed rebrands, or menu overhauls.
[Read Tejal Rao’s ode to old-school L.A. restaurants like Musso’s.]
Mr. Echeverria, for whom Musso’s is a family business, attributed that success to the restaurant’s commitment to keeping everything the same.
When the recession hit, he said, the restaurant got by because of its loyal customers.
“We actually saw the opposite of what the nation saw,” he said. “Our sales increased.”
Still, when his family bought out the family of his great-grandfather’s partner in 2009, Mr. Echeverria said Musso’s was in its worst financial shape.
“When my grandmother passed away in 2000, there wasn’t a clear leader,” he said. “We weren’t putting out the best product, and so it was really a question of whether the restaurant was going to stay open or not.”
Since then, he said things have turned around.
Drinking trends have shifted and younger diners are seeking out the experience of eating a thick steak with a perfect martini.
[Read The Times’s review of “Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood.”]
Mr. Echeverria hired an executive chef, J.P. Amateau, to update many of the classic recipes — without significantly changing the menu. (You are, however, encouraged to ask about gluten-free options.)
Ultimately, Mr. Echeverria said, consistency of service is what distinguishes Musso’s.
“Everybody who works here is career-oriented and professional and serious,” he said. “They understand that what they do matters.”
And Mr. Echeverria said his family tries to return the commitment: The company has offered full health benefits for decades.
Around us, the red-coated servers glided to the tablesides of tourists in T-shirts and older men sitting alone with their lunches. One watched a video on his phone, propped up on a water glass, as he slathered his steak with ketchup from a silver gravy boat.
Beyond the bar in the next room, a crew was at work turning a cavernous, brick-walled space into private dining rooms lined with dark wood and wine racks. It’ll be the restaurant’s first expansion since 1955.
California Online
(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)
• The Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite has served as a reservoir for nearly a century. Should it be restored? [The San Francisco Chronicle]
• California farmers received nearly $80 million in subsidies from the federal government amid the trade war with China. [The Fresno Bee]
• Ras G, an experimental hip-hop producer considered “a guiding light on the Los Angeles music scene,” died this week at age 40. [The New York Times]
• Environmentalists have clashed with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which recently bulldozed endangered plants in Topanga State Park as part of a wildfire prevention project. [The Los Angeles Times]
• Oakland has surpassed San Francisco in per capita homelessness. [The San Francisco Chronicle]
• As the Gilroy shooting unfolded, panicked attendees started flooding the phones of 911 dispatchers. The logs help piece together the immediate aftermath of the shooting. [The Californian]
• The authorities investigating the case say the shooter does not appear to have targeted victims based on their race, contradicting early speculation he was motivated by white nationalist beliefs. [The Los Angeles Times]
• The strip mall where Nipsey Hussle died, which is home to his The Marathon store, has been surrounded by a chain-link fence, reportedly in anticipation of development on the lot. [The Los Angeles Times]
California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment