Dolores’: High Standards, Low Prices

Remember Dolores’ Drive-In when it was on La Cienega and Wilshire and miniskirted waitresses slid your hamburgers onto a tray hooked to the car window? Remember the ridiculously low prices?

Remember the Z sauce and JJ double-decker burger (the three-decker burger, which, claims owner Izzy Freeman, was copied outright by the McDonald’s and Bob’s Big Boy people)?

Well, miniskirted waitresses, whom one always associates with roller skates, thanks to Hollywood renditions of Dolores’ skaters in movies, also are gone, and so is the drive-in concept, thanks to an ordinance prohibiting drive-ins in Beverly Hills. But at the old Dolores’ (relocated on Olympic Boulevard), the menu, taste, JJ burger and Z sauce have been caught in a time warp. So have the prices.

In fact, paying my bill at the end of one overstuffed, gluttonous sampling meal provided a moment of pure pleasure. It was like winning a 10-to-one shot at the horse races, or hitting the $100 jackpot on a Las Vegas slot machine.

The bill for two persons, which included a Dolores’ hamburger (ugly burger-stand yellow-paper wrapper not withstanding), a small bowl of terrific chili, fresh Suzy Q potatoes (you know the on-going spiraly kind you can wire a house with), assorted grilled fish plate that came with a soup or salad, two gorgeous homemade soft dinner rolls, an eggplant patty without the wheat bun, a hot fudge sundae and hot deep-dish apple pie with vanilla ice cream, amounted to $14.95. Or something ridiculous like that. With tax added yet.

You’ll want to reacquaint yourself with Dolores’ if you are on a fixed income, or just nostalgic for the good old days when dining out was much, much, much more simple--and less costly.

I am not talking about haute cuisine, mind you. But you will get a meal that is generally far more varied and probably a lot tastier than most people are capable of cooking themselves in these days of no-cook home cooks.

Be prepared, however, for a few hiccup-y protests from the digestive system when it comes to some of the saucy stuff (like the sauce in the eggplant Parmigiana, which seemed to me to be thick enough to replaster an entire room). But that’s the fun of it. You don’t want everything precisely right when you dine ‘50s style. You want the fries to be slightly greasy, the hamburgers chewy and the chili thick and gooey.

You don’t go to Dolores’ for fat-free, low-sodium, rock-bottom-cholesterol dining, although there are several things, like the soups (split pea, Navy bean, minestrone, clam chowder and beef vegetable), the tuna and chef’s salads and the omelets, among others on the menu, that will assure some semblance of nutritional sobriety.

Generally, a Dolores’ pit stop is the stuff of the growing boys and girls who love to dig in and enjoy before middle-age guilt, penance and atonement sets in to spoil eating pleasure, if not life itself.

Actually, there is a lot to choose from, considering the simplicity of the menu. Breakfast is served from 6 to 11 a.m. daily and until 2 p.m. and after 7 p.m. only on Saturday and Sunday. The breakfast menu alone will make you want to skate over to Dolores’: corned beef hash, Belgian waffles ($1.95 plain), the San Francisco omelet made with spinach and eggs scrambled with sauteed onions and Romano cheese--a stevedore’s meal in itself. Dirt cheap, too: $4.75.

Hamburgers are served without accoutrements, but you can certainly ask for side orders. Patty and tuna melts, open face, and the JJ double-decker ($2.95) with everything on them also are still good. Chili--a very, very good one too--is chock-full of meat morsels and is served straight by the bowl or cup, with or without beans. A bowl is only $4.25. Chili-to-go by the gallonful is also available at $38.75, with crackers, cheese and onions.

Homemade Breads

If you’ve forgotten what a barbecue-style sandwich is like, try one on sourdough or bun from the bakery on the premises. The breads and pastries, in fact, are the best of their type I’ve had in a long time. Rolls, pie crust, heavenly.

Dinner suggestions include old-fashioned favorites that were on Dolores’ menu when it started out in 1944: hamburger steak, grilled liver and onions (which is fast becoming extinct on any restaurant menu), deep-fried fish or shrimp, baked fettuccine with mushroom sauce and a spinach casserole topped with two poached eggs. If you like the idea of eggplant for a vegetarian dinner entree, the eggplant Palermo with pasta will keep you and your purse way under budget ($4.95).

Don’t forget to leave room for some deep-dish pie ($1.65) or sundae ($2.65). Or both. I know I will.

Dolores’ Drive-In, 8925 W. Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills. (213) 655-7920. Open 24 hours daily. No reservations. No checks or credit cards. Parking lot . Average dinner entree $5. Take-out chili by the gallon; whole pies and 16 ounces sauces, soups, potato salad and cole slaw also available to go.