where are the "cool" restaurants/cafes/bars in santa monica located? (Fairfax: homes, cinema)

[disgruntled la native]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah I was probably ordering the wrong things! There is something about those old school coffee shops.

I saw that dolores finally closed. I know they had done a remodel , but I guess couldn't stay in business.
I always thought it was pretty cool, and a rare type of place in West L.A...or L.A in general these days.

Good riddance to Dolores. That place made Norms seem like the pacific dining car. I'd sooner go to teddy's cafe.

speaking of which, the pacific dining car is the other 24 hour restaurant in santa monica now that I remember.

I do miss bob burns, fond memories there growing up, such a cozy atmosphere and great quality comfort food

[Panamajack78]

SM Norms has closed and is being demolished. Luxury apartments will replace it.

Love Pacific Dining Car...very expensive thou, but amazing steaks and food.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by disgruntled la native

Good riddance to Dolores. That place made Norms seem like the pacific dining car. I'd sooner go to teddy's cafe.

speaking of which, the pacific dining car is the other 24 hour restaurant in santa monica now that I remember.

I do miss bob burns, fond memories there growing up, such a cozy atmosphere and great quality comfort food

Hmmm really? I didn't go there a ton of times, but I didn't think it was worse than Norm's.. Also was a different kind of atmosphere and darker than norms. Less crowded too...which probably played a role in their closure.

[Cinema Cat]

Originally Posted by Aldous9

Do you remember what 3rd st was like before the Promenade? I have some memories of it but they are a bit fuzzy.

I remember there were some thrift stores, for clothing. A couple of used CD stores.

A cheap pizza place operated between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd. Mexican workers, sticky floors, black walls (as I recall, perhaps wrongly), red booths, and inexpensive, reheated pizza slices. You bought your slice and they left you alone. I ate there in the late 1980s. It was replaced by a trendy, expensive pizza restaurant.

A white brick building was a few stores north of it. It served as the Upfront Comedy Improv Club in the early 1990s. The brick front collapsed during the earthquake, and Upfront moved around the corner to Broadway. They finally closed around 1995.

The Midnight Special Bookstore, a radical-left indie bookstore, was there before the Promenade and lasted into the 2000s. In 2002, I held a book-reading there, for a class I was teaching at UCLA Extension. My students were self-published authors. Soon after The Midnight Special moved to 2nd Street, then closed.

In 1990, an indie coffee shop called the Congo Drum opened on the new Promenade. Very pretentious. Intentionally mismatched furniture, abstract and African art, with a 1950s/early 1960s beatnik ambiance. Very loud on weekend nights, between the music and conversations. Yet plenty of goateed or dreadlocked guys were pretending to read thick paperbacks amid all the noise. You'd think it'd be easier to read in their homes?

The Congo Drum soon closed, victim to Starbucks, I suppose.

Much as I like Starbucks, the best coffee I ever tasted was at Anastatia's Asylum, on Wilshire Blvd. Around 14th or 13th Street, I think. They closed sometime in the first decade of this century.

[disgruntled la native]

Those were the good old days of Santa Monica. Still a nice safe city, but with more of an edge to it.

One of the first outposts of the new santa monica was the Broadway Deli. In the 90s it was the hot spot to go, and it was great food. Went downhill in the 21st century unfortunately.

[Cinema Cat]

I think they closed the Broadway Deli a couple of years ago.

I last ate there in late 2008. A weekend night, yet it wasn't too crowded. It seemed to be one of the more low-end eateries on the Promenade by then.

I'd read in the Santa Monica Daily Press that the Broadway Deli couldn't afford its rent. There was talk of splitting its retail space in two, leaving a smaller Broadway Deli on the corner, and a clothes boutique in the new space on Broadway. But in the end, I think the Deli closed entirely. I haven't been by that area lately to see.

[jm1982]

The SM area did seem cooler back then. I was young at the time, but I agree it did have more of an edge. Now it feels more corporate and upscale. It's been like that for a while.

That's funny you mentioned Anastatia's Asylum, I remember going there I think in college...so it would of been in the early 2000s maybe 2001 or 2002. That was a cool place.

Indie bookstores..you hardly here about those now too much. They are still around but not as many and more in 'hidden' spots with lower rent.

[yby1]

OMG Midnight Special Bookstore. Loved that place. There was something like the Psychic Eye book shop there too.

[Cinema Cat]

Psychic Eye books? Hmmm. I remember something called the Phoenix, which was a New Age bookstore. It was located on Santa Monica Blvd, I think. (I could be wrong about its initial location.) Then it moved to 5th Street, behind Fred Segal's clothes store. Then it closed.

Thunderbolt books, another New Age bookstore, is still open on Santa Monica Blvd.

There were some other small chain bookstores. A Waldenbooks in Santa Monica Place. And two on Wilshire Blvd -- one between 3rd and 4th, and another around 16th Street. That one eventually became a computer store, and now I think its a mattress or bedding store.

There was another one called Wilshire Books, a used bookstore around the university streets area, which closed a few years ago.

And Realms of Fantasy, on Santa Monica Blvd. between 5th and 6th. That was a new & used sci-fi/fantasy bookstore. A lot of kids would come and play games on the weekends. They'd spread out on the floors, playing Dungeons and Dragons. That one closed and became a clothes boutique. Then they tore the building down and replaced it with a larger one -- one of those mixed retail/residential ones.

There was an art bookstore on Santa Monica Blvd. It had an Italian name. I think that closed a few years ago.

[yby1]

It wasn't psychic eye (that's in venice), but similar. I wish I remembered the name. I used to work at the mall as a kid, would eat a the Woolworth or sometimes a lamb stuffed naan at this Indian joint in the food court.