The TartinePlex restaurants look like they’re seeing some business but no matter when I visit ROW DTLA I get a real Omega Man/I am Legend vibe.
How many of these restaurants and shops will still be in business a year from now?
I hope to see it continue to grow as i’ve seen it from when Smorgasburg began to now. Aside from the individual places -and even though I don’t live close by- it’s easily accessible from the freeway, parking is easy and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by LA history. Personally I enjoy browsing, so hopefully I’ll get to do more of that with coffee or pastry in hand.
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Yep. I respect those that like ROW, but the whole place makes me feel icky. I still want to Hayato, but I’ll be going in spite of the location.
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@frommtron I quite enjoy the oysters at Rappahanock. They may be one of the few places that can source those varietals since they own the farm.
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I have super mixed feelings about the place.
I hate it and the yuppie taste-making and pandering that it represents, but I like a lot of the things that are there, so I find myself at ROW fairly often, and I’ve grown to actually like going there, but I hate that I like going there, but I still want to go to PCP, Cafe Dulce, Pikunico, Rappahanock, Bodega, Smorgasburg, Dandelion, Hayato… basically, I see what they’re doing and it’s working on me and I resent them for it, but I don’t resent them enough to prevent me from visiting.
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This. Exactly this.
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Embrace your inner man bun 
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HAHAHAHA!!!
I think I need to!
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Rappahannock Oyster Bar will celebrate it’s first anniversary next month, and Hayato has already been there over a year now…
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Just give in, Atlas Capital is behind the project and they have deep pockets. Just wait until they refurbish the other buildings for residential.
Same as many feel about Platform. As Amanda Klute from Eater said on the Eater Upsell about Platform “it brings up a lot of self-loathing in myself because I love all those things and they’ve never been presented to me all together in this way where I realized oh my God, what have I become that I love all these and they’re here in this mall and I have to get away from this.”
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I think this article by Meghan McCarron captures it really well (and expresses an almost identical opinion to that one from Amanda):
“Maybe my heart sinks sitting on the patio at Platform because I see an array of restaurants designed precisely to cater to me, and they do. In their reflection, I don’t like what I see.”
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I’ll never give up my mild self-loathing and completely unwarranted feelings of superiority!!!
(also - if anything the owners’ deep pockets make me like them less, and I’ll definitely, seriously, super never even consider living there or anyplace like it)
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Yeah, Amanda and Meghan were both in the podcast conversation regarding Platform.
I’m sure McD, Burger King etc were upstarts with the same ideals as Roberta’s when they first started. Case in point - Starbucks.
Unfortunately anything cool gets perverted by big money eventually, its the way the market works. I wouldn’t be against it if we didn’t see the same thing happen everytime big investment happens where the ideals of the founder get cast aside for pure profit. I’m not against expansion but I do hate to see something cool lose its soul, I’d like to think there is a happy middleground where a concept can be spread to the mass market without having to be dumb down
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I wonder how much the pedestrian zone hurts the businesses? The design seems to assume that people will park in the garage, but it’s kind of hostile to Lyft and Uber users. You get dropped off on a kind of scuzzy street and it’s not clear how to get to the restaurants. The pedestrian gate at Dock & 7th is exit-only.
Melissa Perello has a Michelin-starred restaurant in SF, and Pizzeria Bianco is famous, so that will surely draw people to try them once.
Rappahannock was very quiet when I was there on a weeknight this summer. The whole complex was dead except for some signs of life in whatever the now-closed restaurant was across from the Manufactory.
Is ROW lively on weekdays when office workers are there?
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Not particularly busy on weekdays. Just a bit too far from downtown with no appealing public transit options.
Looking forward to the Pizzeria, though!
Hayato is excellent. Dandelion Chocolate makes my favorite chocolate in the world, though it’s easier to buy it from their website. I’ve heard only lukewarm things about Tartine Manufactory.
Anything else noteworthy about The Row? Is the Smorgasburg worth visiting? Perhaps others answered these questions, but I could not understand the point of the social commentary they were expressing.
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They occasionally seem to have events going on there. During the summer, there was some sort of artsy/architecture/design festival and the place was the busiest I’d ever seen. I usually park on the second floor when I’m there and went almost to the top. There’s some kind of space for daytime special pop-up events that I’ve seen and I remember the Shopify location there being packed for a workshop one night.
Generally, the evening in particular is extremely dead. Most of the shops are closed by 5 (if they aren’t appointments only of which there are some). The only restaurants open at that point are really Hayato, Rappahanock, and Tartine. I actually enjoy the peace and quiet when I’m there, though I am curious how all those shops afford rent.
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