Does anyone miss the old Marina Del Rey marketplace? (movie theater, middle school)

[Exitus Acta Probat]

What year did Westworld close?

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by Beth56

They have brunches on the weekends. Standing room only, packed house. It's pretty good, but really busy. Can be difficult to maneuver around buffet tables for the older folks. And the lines can be long at times.

Oh, I miss that brunch! It's especially nice if you bike it there. What a great place to relax, eat, drink and be merry!

[jaypee]

MDR was the hangout place for me growing up. IIRC, prior to Aunt Kizzie's was Perry's Pizza where it was a gathering place for local kids. My friends used to work at the Swenson's that is now a Kinko's and I recall a La Salsa (pre-cursor to Baja Fresh) where the coffee shop is now.

I've friends that used to work at the hotdog stand in Fisherman's Village and my first gf worked at Shanghai Reds. Ah, the memories!

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Anybody else attend a summer camp where some of the days you rented a few of those little sailboats in the Marina?

[Marv101]

The AMC dine-in theatre next to Gelson's opened last August, a couple of months later than originally anticipated; I haven't tried it yet.

California has been losing kids for several years, which will be devastating for the state's finances in years to come.

Rents in MDR aren't exactly affordable for a middle class citizen anyway; the area remains very desirable after all these years, but deep pockets are a must.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by jaypee

IIRC, prior to Aunt Kizzie's was Perry's Pizza where it was a gathering place for local kids. My friends used to work at the Swenson's that is now a Kinko's and I recall a La Salsa (pre-cursor to Baja Fresh) where the coffee shop is now.

Perry's, Swenson's, La Salsa (the original small chain only found in the Southland). True classics.

I think they still have Swenson's over in Thailand ... not sure how that was done, but the menu was nearly identical with the classic one.

[ccm123]

I hung out there when I attended UCLA in the 80's and when I worked in nearby El Segundo. Haven't been there in years. I will stop by next time I am in Southern California to see what it's like now. Many fond memories of that place, as I took dates there in college, etc

[415_s2k]

Oh man... the Barnes & Noble in that complex was the first job I had, back when I was 18. I still keep in contact with a few of the guys I worked with back then; they have a band, and we've gigged together a few times.

I wasn't making any money and could barely stay afloat; some paydays, I would spoil myself with Baja Fresh (yes, it was that bad). After I moved on and started making money, I still was there frequently, to say hi to the people who still worked at the B&N, and to try some the restaurants in there that I'd always wanted to eat at when I was flat-on-my-ass broke.

Shershah is pretty good, and not only that, but when I came back to LA after having been gone for four years, the sikh fellow who's always there (not sure if he'd the owner or just family) was eyeing me very closely and very sheepishly asked, "you like the shahi paneer korma... extra spicy. Very spicy." I told him I was amazed he remembered, and he gave me the meal on the house and welcomed me back

There's a Japanese place in there called Irori that was really, really, really good. I was taken there by a Japanese classmate and then again by an ex who was Japanese and it became a staple place. Don't really go there since I'm not living out that way anymore, but I need to...

The Jerry's Deli there saved my butt many, many nights simply because it was 24 hours. It's not 24 hours all week anymore, and although the menu is still enormous, it's much more expensive than it should be.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

I remember the Japanese place! I went there in the summer of '94.

BTW, what year did the Barnes & Noble open?

[415_s2k]

The Japanese place is still there; at least it was the last time I checked, which was something like... oh jeez, six/seven months ago Great stuff. Loved their tempura and soba noodles!

I worked there in '02 and there were people there who had been there for awhile... I wanna say it probably opened in the mid-90's sometime, probably 95-96.

They had just finished the big luxury condos at the end of Maxella when I'd started there, and there were a few people who worked at the B&N who lived in the area... they all complained about them and said that it was a sign of the beginning of the end. They were right, to an extent: I saw the character change with that and the Playa Del Rey development by the wetlands... it seemed like MDR was a lot more middle-class before, with some aging yacht-rockers who hung out by the Marina itself (there was a regular who came into the bookstore who drove a Ferrari 308 that was showing its age, still wore Tommy Bahama shirts, aviators before aviators became cool again, sporting a huge diamond in his left ear and a big, curly mop of mullet on his head). The credit boom that built the new complexes around there and drove up prices got in a lot of yuppies... the parents of a friend of mine who had grown up there sold his childhood house for nearly a half million and moved to Corona (keep in mind when I say this, I am basically a yuppie - I'm a 29 year old single guy who lives and works in BH).

My ex-fiance worked at the Gap across the street in that other complex. When I first moved out there and was still totally broke, I'd think to myself how badly I wished I could eat at the restaurants around there. I'd go to the Gelson's that's downstairs and sigh to myself about all the high-end, high-priced goods that looked delicious. Sounds really cheesy, by it feels like a lifetime ago and also like yesterday. I grew up really, really poor and had spent a lot of my life self conscious about it... then, I almost wore it like a badge of honor, that I grew up with practically nothing and didn't need much. The first year I lived in LA, especially the first six months, were a massively-pivotal point that set the foundations for how I've lived my life in the interceding ten years. It was the first time I was out of the shadow of how I grew up. Being self-sustaining, on my own, so far from everything I knew made me realize that I could live the sort of life that I wanted - I didn't want to be greedy, didn't want to live in decadence or opulence, but I wanted to be stable, and comfortable, and free from the fear and stress that had dominated my life up till then.

And, again... not wanting to sound cheesy... but, that whole little area there was a big part of that. I always feel very nostalgiac when I go back.