|
By Mark Elliot
 Take this lesson from Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria: Fast food can be uplifting. Yes, uplifting! Visitors to downtown Los Angeles will wonder why they should ever endure the dispiriting fluorescent-cool of a McDonald's again. Why not experience near-transcendence amidst the splendors of nature in this decidedly non-traditional Southern California cafeteria? A neighborhood institution and Los Angeles curiosity for its picturesque mountain-lodge motif, Clifton's has been a refuge from urban hustle and bustle for decades – long before the themed food court and faux rain showers of the Rainforest Café.
In its 65 years on Broadway in downtown, Clifton's Brookdale has witnessed the 1920s boom and postwar bust. The legendary "red car" streetcar lines that ferried middle-class suburban shoppers and office workers downtown yielded to the convenience of the personal automobile. Freeway construction isolated downtown like an island as a sea of development that spread to the reaches of neighboring Orange and Ventura counties. From within, urban redevelopment erased the life from the remaining downtown neighborhood of Bunker Hill while business interests bolted, rolling out the legendary Wilshire, Sunset, and Santa Monica (Route 66) boulevards to the west until they stretched to water's edge.
 This neighborhood fixture, sandwiched between storefront churches and discount clothing shops, stands as a window into Los Angeles circa 1935, the year that Clifford Clinton purchased the lease of an earlier cafeteria and shaped it to reflect a distinctly California coastal redwoods theme. An Art Deco terrazzo sidewalk mural in front of the restaurant celebrates California history, picturing orange groves, oil derricks and beaches – all mere vestiges of the Southland's economies of yesterday. Just as the city's center of gravity shifted westward, so did the economic foundation of the region shift to defense contracting, global entertainment production, and manufacturing. Downtown lost its purpose. Despite decades of decline, Clifton's remains a stalwart on Broadway and continues as a community institution filling stomachs and souls.
Robert's grandfather, Clifford Clinton, established the family's chain of cafeterias in 1931 with a Polynesian-themed cafeteria on nearby Olive Street. As the Depression worsened, however, Clinton wanted a spiritually uplifting restaurant on Broadway that could provide the community with a hot meal when money was in short supply, but also present a welcome distraction from the Depression and its impact on America's downtowns. Combining the names "Clifford" and "Clinton," Clifton's Brookdale served food to those who could not always pay. "My Grandfather had the idea that people who couldn't afford food shouldn't have to pay for it," says grandson Robert Clinton. "He wouldn't turn people away, and to this day we'll give people food if they have an urgent need."
But it was the décor that distinguished Clifton's Brookdale from the prosaic cafeteria restaurant. Eschewing the Polynesian theme, Clinton drew inspiration from the Santa Cruz Mountains and its famous Brookdale Lodge. Indeed, a replicated stone lodge and hand-carved wooden bear alert the visitor that this is no ordinary cafeteria. A wall-sized mural of a redwood forest scene painted by muralist Einar Petersen sets the stage. Mountaineer vignettes and dioramas abound throughout the two-story dining room. Landscaped with rustic details and mock trees (which obscure supporting columns), foliaged nooks and terraces complete with deer and small mammals make Clifton's not only a return to nature but also an historic curiosity. Recently attendees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Los Angeles conference trekked to the downtown eatery to take in the décor and sample the food – billed on the menus as "The Best in the West."
A small sampling of the eclectic feast was surprisingly good, if only marginally short of the menu's boast. In addition to standard daily cafeteria fare, Clifton's serves up veal "veloute" with noodles, "Chinese-style" lamb breast, fajitas, and all manner of hot and cold side dishes: artichoke hearts, pickled beets, stewed tomatoes, Jell-Os, custards, and at least five kinds of pie. And that's the short of it. Diversity has to be the rule as the cafeteria serves a varied clientele. In a city notorious for its racial and class segregation, Clifton's is a place where all kinds of people rub shoulders, from the city attorney ("it's the only place where he can get liver and onions," joked Robert Clinton) to the Latino families who shop the recently renovated cavernous Central Market a few blocks north on Broadway. Clifton's serves half a million meals annually with 3000 customers served on an average Thanksgiving.
Today, downtown shows some sighs of a contemporary renaissance. In a city where restaurants on the Westside offer braised quail and herb-encrusted salmon at $30 per entree (yet never a table available!), Clifton's Brookdale is an egalitarian holdover from an era of informal dining. People appear to know each other and talk between tables about politics (and everything else). Latino shoppers, garment wholesalers, and a recent influx of neo-urban loft dwellers share elbow room with skid-row patrons. Clinton's legacy lives on as an egalitarian place where between-table chatter as well as hungry stomachs bring people together. Where else can you find a healthy serving of poached haddock with a choice of sides to complement the sort of friendly chatter between tables that itself seems a holdover from a distant, bygone era? "All kinds of people come to Clifton's," observes Robert Clinton, scion of the Clifford Clinton cafeteria family. "It's a real melting pot."
 Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria, 648 South Broadway, Los Angeles, Calif. 90014, Tel.: 213-627-1673. Hours: Open 7 days a week, 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. All major credit cards accepted; wheelchair accessible. Website: www.cliftonscafeteria.com
|
