The Wave Crashes on Reality’s Shore

The handsome, post-modern-look, California-style restaurant and bar called Wave, on Main Street in Santa Monica, has tentatively shut down. Co-proprietor John W. Henry blames the establishment’s demise on a Santa Monica city zoning decision that restricts the dining room to 49 seats. “Further steps are being taken in our effort to increase our seating or to change the concept,” he notes in a letter posted on the restaurant door, “but for the present it has been necessary that we temporarily close.” Henry adds that “cash flow has stopped,” adding to the restaurant’s problems.

After something of a shaky start, Wave had developed into a first-rate neighborhood restaurant with good food (thanks at least in part to the admirable Claude Segal, who served as consultant for a time) and a pleasant and efficient staff. It must be noted, though, that the place might well have lost itself some potential customers in its early days, when it was terribly impressed with its own initial success. When I tried to make a dinner reservation in 1986 he was told with “petulant finality” that, “We’re all booked up. . . . We have been for days.” I boycotted the place for weeks after that. Later, a visit was worthwhile, but how many other rudely treated customers simply didn’t bother to return? Forty-nine seats isn’t very many, but it helps if you can keep them all filled, all the time. Being nice to people helps do that--and restaurant-goers tend to have long memories for the not-so-nice. This is something restaurateurs should perhaps remember when their place is temporarily the hottest thing on the block.

HOLIDAY SEASONING: At the Biltmore Hotel, downtown, amid live fir trees and poinsettia plants, carolers in authentic Dickens’ period costume (not from “Hard Times” or “Little Dorrit,” one hopes) will perform daily from noon until 2 p.m., through Dec. 23; and a special Holiday Tea, including egg nog and fruitcake, will be served from 2 to 5. . . . Lawry’s the Prime Rib on La Cienega flavors its ample dinners with Christmas carols every evening through the 24th, as does its sibling, the Tam O’Shanter Inn on Los Feliz Boulevard. . . . JAX Bar & Grill, for the fourth year in a row, gives free dinner certificates to customers dining with them on Christmas Eve. . . . And if the crinkling of gift-wrap paper starts to get on your nerves, you might like to know that the Cafe de la Paix in Tarzana serves champagne brunch on Christmas Day itself, from 11 a.m. . . .

TASTY GIFTS: A good last-minute Christmas gift for some becfin or other of your acquaintance might well be L’Ermitage’s justly-famous house-smoked salmon, which the La Cienega-side restaurant now sells for $16 a pound. . . . The Angeli restaurants in Hollywood and West Los Angeles offer gift baskets in three sizes, plus such items as a spiffy “wings” T-shirt, a new Christmas-themed long-sleeved shirt, and copies of two delightful books co-authored by Angeli co-proprietor Evan Kleiman. . . . And the Crocodile Cafe in Pasadena suggests wristwatches, Christmas tree ornaments and sweat shirts as gifts, all bearing images of the house logo--a contented-looking crocodile. . . .

RESTAURANT UPDATE: Rockenwagner in Venice is now serving a seasonal game menu in addition to its regular bill of fare. Wild boar ragout, leg of venison with celery gratin, and roast squab on roesti potatoes are among the offerings. . . . Rockenwagner’s next-door neighbor, Sabroso, has changed its longtime no-reservations policy and will now book tables for parties of three or more. . . . Yanks in Beverly Hills has enlarged its bar and introduced a new bar menu of both food and fancy drinks (one of which, hot brandied apple cider, sounds like just the thing for one of these cool nights we’ve been having). . . . Tamayo in East Los Angeles has inaugurated a Sunday buffet brunch (including, yes, menudo, for those who are so inclined). . . . Gio’s in Hollywood has a new chef, Belgian-born Michel Wahaltere (who served under Patrick Healy at Colette), and said chef has added a nightly four-course $25-per-person dinner to the regular menu. . . . Mason’s in Brentwood has closed for lunch, but opens seven nights a week for dinner from 5 p.m. . . . And La Famiglia in Beverly Hills has been newly redecorated, and is now open for lunch.