I’ve been fond of the place for 13 years, working across the street. Countless happy hours happened there early on. Ate there a bunch of times but obviously quickly started to avoid their stale food.
But I’ve been thinking since their closing (it was doom for them ever since food trucks showed up and finally the increase in lease killed them off), who could possibly take that lease on and actually succeed?
It’s an fun exercise and I honestly can’t think of anything or anyone that could take over a space this large, in an area that basically gets no dinner business, no foot traffic after lunch. It would have to be something so amazing that it would be a destination. But it’s too big for just one restaurant, so maybe a marketplace type of a setup?
An Eataly would do well there but they already have one and it’s too small for them.
I think it remains vacant until the landlord remodels it and breaks it up. Thoughts?
Not in that location, but read about Eleven City Diner opening up on 5400 Wilshire Blvd later this month. Don’t know much about the place other than it’s from Chicago.
We enjoyed it! Well priced and the items were well prepared. There were some marks that were missed, like the Chicken Soup needs some herbage (Dill) and I wish the Latkes were as munchy as the ones as the hashbrowns at Castells (especially in their famous Roast Beef). And for some reason their Turkey Club didn’t have bacon?!? We are in the area often and can’t wait for their to go window. Going to hit them up for Breakfast next…
Speaking of pastrami, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Golden State, but their special on Thursday is the Collusion Burger which is a Golden State burger topped with Ugly Drum pastrami. Hmm…
I can now see why, then, that Callender’s closed: its parking had been sold for redevelopment.
I’ll miss it in its own way: had many pleasant lunch meetings there. I used to work right across the street at 5700 Wilshire. BTW, inside 5700 is a German cultural entity called The Goethe Institute, which has screenings of Germany games during the soccer World Cup. They set up a whole theater room for it. I’ve checked it out, but there wasn’t really any ethnic food with it, so I didn’t go back or post about it.
I work in the 5700 bldg (actually today is our last day there—we’re moving tomorrow to WLA.) The sales team @ the company I work for said the same thing about having nice lunch meetings over there. I didn’t know about the Goethe Institute—too bad I’m on deadline today or I would check it out.
