RESTAURANT REVIEW : The Pantry Opens a Quaint Reproduction Next Door

The guy to the left is saying, “And if they default, we’ll slap a lien on them.” The guy to the right is saying, “I’m not going back to work. I’m going to the track.” Sounds like we’re at the Original Pantry, that 24-hour downtown diner where neckties and Windbreakers sit side by side in the most convincingly urban fashion.

But hold on--no, we aren’t. The Pantry, after 64 years of uniqueness, has unexpectedly joined the recent fashion for well-known restaurants (like Chianti) to start junior versions next door (like Chianti Cucina). So this isn’t the Pantry after all: Welcome to the Pantry Bake and Sandwich Shoppe.

Yes, Shoppe. And if you think that spelling means it’s quainter and more aesthetic than the rugged old Pantry, you’re practically right. It is lighter and more spacious inside and makes an actual attempt at decor. The walls feature photos of Los Angeles from the days when City Hall was the highest building in town, and even some celebrity glossies (Tommy Lasorda and Jean Harlow signed theirs; Brooke Shields and Eddie Albert didn’t).

However, the appearance of the place is still reassuringly industrial. Up by the ceiling you can see stockpots and extra chairs. You can buy a souvenir Pantry coffee mug, but still no Pantry T-shirt.

Basically, the Shoppe serves the Pantry menu. That is, standard breakfast stuff until lunch time, then a basic menu of about 10 steaks and chops augmented by daily home-style specials (franks and sauerkraut, ham hocks and lima beans). They even start you out automatically with a bowl of the Pantry’s famous coleslaw, which is still about the best in town.

But there are two differences: One, unlike the Pantry, the Shoppe is not a 24-hour operation. It opens at 6 in the morning and closes at 8:30 p.m. And two, after the breakfast hour, the Shoppe emphasizes sandwiches.

The best cold sandwich is probably turkey, made with plenty of thin-sliced white meat. The burgers are genuine hamburgers, not the Pantry’s hamburger steak, which in my book is a sort of fried meat loaf. The Shoppe has decided ideas on how burgers are to be served: A plain bun (or toasted French bread if they run out), fried onions (watch out, you can burn your mouth on them), lettuce and tomato (but only on the side), hickory-flavored barbecue sauce.

The place is proud of its “Southern-style” French fries though they do not seem supernal to me. And you can get them with chili and onions. Actually, the Shoppe is rather obliging within its limits, and serves customers things not on the menu boards if possible. I saw people ordering chili burgers and getting them.

Another thing, this is a bake as well as a sandwich shoppe; in addition to coffee cakes at breakfast, it makes pies and dessert cakes. The pies tend to have good flaky crusts and rather liquid fillings. I’d pass on the insipid cheesecake, but the chocolate cake is really impressive in its way. It’s more than moist, it’s sticky. It clings to the roof of your mouth and your cheeks and your teeth and certainly to your ribs. For a certain tribe of chocoholics it is paradise, maybe even better than eating straight chocolate.

The Shoppe must help the Pantry with its crowding problem. It’s added a new problem, though--more crowding in the Pantry parking lot. Maybe the neckties and the Windbreakers could just car pool there together.

The Original Pantry Bake & Sandwich Shoppe, 875 S. Figueroa St . (213) 627-6879. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. No alcoholic beverages. Parking lot at 9th and Figueroa streets. No credit cards. Lunch for one, food only, $4 to $10.