[Tourmaline]

Originally Posted by odinthor

Noirishers will like to linger on the thought that there was another branch of Clifton's Cafeteria at Lakewood Center. That place was very dear to me; and I was literally stunned when one day, after it chanced I hadn't been there for about a year, I parked to eat there and the familiar Clifton's sign wasn't where it should have been!!! Bah. The location had a somewhat dim basement "lounge"--basically a restroom foyer with pay phones and plastic plants. Probably the idea was to get people who wanted to have a phone conversation away from the clatter of the plates and glassware in the dining area (as well as to get the sound of flushing away from the diners). The wooden stairs would squeak as you trod on them; and, in the close atmosphere in the foyer, there was always a smell of vinyl from the upholstery of the couches along the wall. Upstairs, in the dining area, for a long time they'd have a live organist playing off and on to entertain the customers. My earliest memory of the place--when I was quite young indeed--was that my family brought me there on my birthday, for which such occasions they'd provide a free cake with the celebrant's name on it. They brought the cake, and . . . it had the name of some unknown girl on it. There's a good side to that incident, though, as my therapists have benefited from it for decades.

Read "stairs" and immediately thought of Ah Fong's, although its exact address is now in doubt. One source lists 424 North Beverly Drive, or could it have been 466 Beverly Drive as indicated in '56 CD? http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=7610994&postcount=37671


https://dbase1.lapl.org/images/menus/fullsize/d/rb04084-01.jpg


This leads me back to Clifton's Cafeterias. Have we seen photos of Clifton's on Hollywood Blvd.? Recently noticed billboards of the era advertising this location "Holly-Western" and it is clearly listed as 5510 Hollywood Blvd. on page 2957 of the '34CD. Location would have been near the Apollo Theater.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=7737375&postcount=40455 and http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=7737760&postcount=40478