Mrs. Knotts, gets updated, too trendy? (Orange, Bellflower: school, restaurants, price)

[LuvSouthOC]

Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant reopens with new look, but same chicken - The Orange County Register

I know Mrs. Knotts needed a facelift, but it seems they went a bit too trendy with something as simple as a chicken dinner restaurant. It was pure retro. I take the kids here often when we go to Knotts. It is very old fashioned California/Americana. It warms your heart. And where else can you get boysenberry pie?

Now with these changes, I fear they messed with part of the charm. What do you think?

[DriveNotCommute]

When you said "too trendy," I half expected the kind of modern decor you'd see at fusion restaurants. As it is, I think the photos from the article showed that they kept a country theme going and it really didn't seem too bad.

On the other hand, I could also tell it was a little sterile or lacking character? It did remind me of something I'd expect to see in a Pottery Barn catalog and suspect that the farm-like motif may actually be nonsensical to people who know farm architecture well, specifically, people who can actually tell the difference between building styles that evolved out of different times and regions. But all in all, I didn't hate what I saw in the pictures.

To give a bit of context though, I'm someone who has never been to Mrs. Knott's so I essentially have an outsider's viewpoint on this. I had wanted to go for many years but simply never got around to it. The more recent Yelp reviews were so uniformly bad that I decided not to bother anymore and to simply write it off as past history and a missed experience. This renovation should negate the cleanliness complaints from many of the poor Yelp reviews though, I might reconsider making a trip sometime.

[NickofDiamonds]

Basically it was a much needed shave and a hair cut as it was looking shabby and run down.

[beachie123]

i like it. i think it looks good. i can't help notice in pictures 6, 24 and 29, the difference in the portions of food given now compared to then. sheesh. also, check out those long lines for waiting to get in back in the 40's! wow!

[DewDropInn]

Walt and Cordelia would turn over in their graves if they knew there was a bar in the restaurant.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by LuvSouthOC

Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant reopens with new look, but same chicken - The Orange County Register

I know Mrs. Knotts needed a facelift, but it seems they went a bit too trendy with something as simple as a chicken dinner restaurant. It was pure retro. I take the kids here often when we go to Knotts. It is very old fashioned California/Americana. It warms your heart. And where else can you get boysenberry pie?

Now with these changes, I fear they messed with part of the charm. What do you think?

Heck, if it makes a difference in terms of surviving in The Brave New World, I'm all for it.

It seems most of the old school places I liked in SoCal are long gone. Some of the replacements are so called "ethnic" mom and pop places, a decent trade off, but some are overpriced way too hip "stuff white people like" types of places where the plating art is more important than achieving a stick-to-your-ribs meal.

I used to have a little "grub" crawl that started in the LBC, then up into Bellflower, then across into North OC ending at Mrs. Knotts. At least that one is still left!

[rsmfan]

The bar area maybe trendy. To me the rest of it looks freshened but cut from the same cloth as it was originally. It was getting rundown. I haven't been there in person since remodel, just going by the pictures.

[Hemlock140]

We get a meal there whenever we are in Southern CA, and it was getting a bit run down, and seating was tight. We'll give it a try again in May, hopefully the food is still as good.