Rocky Cola Cafe Offers Blend of Pop Decor and Traditional Cuisine

It was a slow night on the truck stop beat, and I found myself actually listening to nearby conversations. Over on one side an eager guy sporting a mustache and a baseball cap was asking a waitress where she’d like to live if it couldn’t be in L.A.

“Carson City, Nevada,” she said, quick as a wink.

On the other side, a young woman was telling her mother about a place called Rocky Cola Cafe. “It’s really cute,” she emphasized. The mother nodded uncertainly.

Quelle surprise , I muttered into my turkey with mashed potatoes. I’d heard of Rocky Cola Cafe. It’s in upper Glendale, half a block outside of Montrose, and I concluded that it must indeed be cute for young women to be selling their mothers on it all the way out in the Valley--in Sun Valley, for gosh sakes.

Naturally, I went to Rocky Cola, and sooner or later you would too, if you lived anywhere in the neighborhood. It’s located at the corner of Montrose Avenue and Honolulu Avenue/Verdugo Boulevard, where a small-town shopping street meets the next biggest thing to a freeway. To some the social makeup of the place would seem odd: teen-agers hanging out at a place that’s also full of grown-ups, particularly grown-ups with children.

Maybe the reason is that it has a high fun quotient. It’s a cheerful, cartoony sort of place where everything seems to be either white, chrome or fire-engine red, as if the whole place were a Coca-Cola sign. Entertaining pop things lie all around, including a classic Wurlitzer 1050 jukebox (the wall boxes at the tables don’t seem to work, though) and a collection of Coke bottles labeled in 10 different languages.

As for the name Rocky Cola itself, that remains a mystery. There is a drink called Rocky Cola on the menu, but it turns out to be a sort of fruit punch based on cranberry juice. Best to take Rocky Cola as it is without asking too many questions.

Basically it’s a lunch counter, and it does the usual lunch counter things: salads, sandwiches, chicken noodle soup, a version of chili with beans very much in the Hormel tradition. Often it does them a little better than usual. The french fries, of the skin-on variety, are reasonably brown, and the onion rings are big, sweet, heavily breaded hoops. Sometimes Rocky Cola goes beyond tradition by offering heart-healthy dishes with the American Heart Assn. shield.

Sometimes, in fact, it makes them distinctly better than tradition requires. The orange juice is fresh; the ham has a dense texture and a meaty flavor far superior to the usual pale, watery breakfast ham; and the toast that comes with a lot of things, including the chili, is made from egg bread. The big, long spears of fried zucchini are fairly crisp even though the breading is quite brown, and what the menu labels a small portion is pretty generous.

A skirt steak sandwich, served on more egg bread toast, has evidently seen some odd but tasty marinade, probably a mixture of soy sauce and liquid smoke. Chicken or various kinds of seafood are deep-fried as “fingers,” the cornmeal breading coming out surprisingly dark and crisp. There’s a grilled hotdog nearly a foot long, and the burgers are charcoaly, if not terribly thick.

On the other hand, the turkey burger is excessively health-foody. The combination of aggressive Dijon mustard and bitter sprouts does not do the dry, flavorless ground turkey patty any good.

The warm chicken salad combines a surprisingly mild Dijon mustard sauce with chicken, almonds and a mixed lettuce salad, and the result is surprisingly dull.

The desserts are mostly soda fountain stuff, such as sundaes and soft-serve frozen shakes. There are also cakes and pies and a couple of exoticisms such as a chocolate peach melba. The best is a splurge of a hot apple dumpling. “Just Like Mother Made,” says the menu; just like mother made, that is, if your mother served a baked apple in puffy dumpling dough with cinnamon ice cream, brandy sauce, whipped cream, nuts and a cherry.

Naturally, Rocky Cola is open for breakfast, and there are specials on the little blackboard over the cash register just as there are at lunch and dinner. One special I’ve had is veal sausage patties with outstanding home fries, neither underdone nor excessively oily. The poached eggs came on the side in a cup--a nice touch. The “Ultimate French Toast” is at least reasonably ultimate, light-textured and sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar.

Not bad. I see why they’re talking about you in Sun Valley, mon cher Rocky.

Recommended dishes: fried zucchini, $1.75; skirt steak sandwich, $5.95; hot apple dumpling, $2.95.

Rocky Cola Cafe, 2201 Honolulu Ave., Glendale. (818) 249-CAFE. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. No alcoholic beverages. Street parking. No credit cards accepted. Lunch for two, food only, $14 to $24.