Java Joints : What’s One of the Hottest Things Brewing in L. A.? : Coffeehouses--Some Sedate, Some That Percolate

Waiter, waiter, percolator.

(“Java Jive,” Milton Drake & Ben Oakland) The coffeehouse--an institution in cities such as New York and San Francisco--has been as foreign a concept in Los Angeles as subways or corner delis. Until recently.

There are now more than half a dozen coffeehouses around L. A., each with its own personality. Some are places to read or chat quietly. Some are places to watch movies, listen to live music or read poetry. Others cater to coffee gourmands, people who love the beverage rhapsodized by the French statesman Charles Talleyrand as being “black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”

And, since this is, after all, Los Angeles, other establishments cater to a crowd less interested in the perfect cup of coffee than in a chance to see and be seen.

What separates a coffeehouse from a coffee shop? Ship’s, Norm’s and DuPar’s don’t have poetry readings. Or original art on the walls for sale. Or backgammon and Scrabble sets for customers’ use. Coffee shops are content to lull customers with Muzak versions of “Love Is Blue,” while coffeehouses challenge customers’ musical sensibilities with Prokofiev, the Andrews Sisters or the Stone Roses.

Surprisingly, a coffeehouse doesn’t necessarily serve coffee. At the Mad Hatter, cappuccino and espresso are on the menu but a cup of plain Joe is not. (Most places that don’t keep a pot on the burner, however, will gladly “stretch” an espresso by adding water for anyone who asks.)

The owners of the coffeehouses all claim they have one thing in common: “We’re trying to do something a little different, to create a real participatory space,” says Richard Brenner, who opened one of the city’s newest coffeehouses, Highland Grounds, in early January with partner Tom Kaplan. Like other coffeehouse owners, Brenner and Kaplan want to provide an alternative to L. A.’s private clubs and discotheques--and appeal to people who, for one reason or another, are choosing not to drink liquor.

The scene is growing. In the mid-1980s, L. A.’s coffeehouse scene was, by and large, restricted to two locations: Silver Lake’s Onyx, half a dozen tables in a tiny storefront that abutted a revival theater, and Gasoline Alley on Melrose Avenue. Both are gone now, although the Onyx has been reincarnated as the Onyx Sequel on Vermont Avenue--a combination coffeehouse and gallery.

And the new crop of coffeehouses, from Pasadena’s Espresso Bar to Hollywood’s Lizards, may offer the same sorts of events--art shows, poetry readings--but each caters to a distinctly different crowd.

“No Alcohol, No Snobs,” proclaims the sign on the door of the Mad Hatter, which serves up caffeine to a youthful crowd until 4 a.m. seven nights a week. Located on a block of Pico Boulevard that is normally deserted at night, the Mad Hatter opens at 8 p.m. and is usually going strong by midnight.

Inside, the decor is vibrant: “Alice in Wonderland” by way of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” executed on a budget. The menu, in reverse type, has to be held up to a mirror to be read. Customers sit at ‘50s-style Formica kitchen tables, drinking espresso out of mismatched mugs. Plastic penguins and pineapples sprout from the rafters and moldings. A framed cover from the “Weekly World News” announces, “ELVIS IS ALIVE!” A TV broadcasts an old Angela Lansbury movie while ‘40s jazz plays softly.

The Mad Hatter has the most structured activity schedule of any local coffeehouse. On Monday nights, it offers open-mike (anyone can participate) storytelling; on Tuesdays, there is open-mike comedy; on Wednesdays, open-mike music. Thursday is movie night, Friday the management describes only as “general insanity” and on Saturdays concerts are presented. Sundays are reserved for open poetry readings, which are popular attractions at many area coffeehouses.

Mondays at Lizards and Wednesdays at the Espresso Bar also feature poetry. The Espresso Bar presents live music on Thursdays by a combo called Snotty Scotty and the Hankies, and sets aside Tuesdays for “Espresso Yourself” night, where the only performance rule is “no mimes.”

On a recent Monday at Lizards, one could have listened to selections as disparate as Emily Post’s etiquette tips, a Louis Armstrong impression, the works of Robert Lowell and a poem called “Laxative Sensory Fracture.” (The first 20 poets to arrive and sign up are allowed to read a three-minute selection of original work or poetry by other authors.)

The weekly readings have grown so popular that John Gonzales, who owns the coffeehouse with partner Clinton Oie, found himself stationed at the door, saddled with the uncomfortable task of turning away customers. Most were disappointed, but they took it with good humor.

“We used to let as many people read as showed up, and we’d let them go on for 10 minutes. We used to let them bring in alcohol, too, but that didn’t last for long,” said Gonzales. “Our poetry people tend to be more serious than the ones at some of the other places. They really listen. And we stop serving during the readings.”

Inside, poets and listeners sat on couches, chairs and the floor. Lizards is an eclectic, comfortable place with track lighting, large plants and rummage-sale furniture ranging from squishy couches to zebra-striped sling chairs. The crowd was as diverse as the furnishings, with middle-age women in polyester settling in next to younger listeners in leather and serious, bespectacled types. The poems were written on everything from spiral notebooks to paper bags and were occasionally preceded by personal announcements--”I got my first national McDonald’s commercial this year, my 50th birthday!”

Harriet Ward Miller had shown up too late to read, but she was happy just to listen and meet people. “Don’t call me a senior citizen--I’m old !,” she said. Miller praised the caliber of poetry she had heard since discovering the coffeehouse circuit a few months before. She had brought her daughter with her and proudly showed off a copy of California Senior Citizen magazine that contained one of her poems.

“Mad,” said her daughter cryptically.

“She thinks I’m not going to be a success until I’m published in Mad magazine,” Miller said, “so I’m going to submit there.”

“I like Lizards,” Miller added, “but I also read at the Mad Hatter. That’s a very youthful crowd; you rarely see anybody in there over 25. They think of me as a little old lady from Pasadena.”

Tracy Reves, a graduate student at UC Irvine, was there for the first time; she had come in to hear a friend read. “Some of the poetry I liked and some I didn’t,” she said after the reading, “but by and large they were better than I had expected.”

Most coffeehouse patrons seem to maintain loyalty to their favorite places, rather than coffeehouse-hopping.

“Java. Java is it,” says Mara Mikialian, who frequents the comfortable and chic Beverly Boulevard coffeehouse “at least once a week.” She goes to socialize with friends and meet new people. “I used to go to Gasoline Alley,” she says, “but they got to be too fussy, not letting you use the games unless you ate food and all of that. Java is casual, and it’s well-ventilated, which is one of the things I look for in a coffeehouse.” At Java, upscale and downscale seem to coexist well, sometimes on the same person: Blue jeans and T-shirts are often topped with Armani jackets.

The pik me up on West 6th Street is perhaps the most modish of the L. A.-area coffeehouses, with Harleys parked outside; a ponytailed, black-leathered crowd inside, and a profile in Andy Warhol’s Interview to cement its trendy status. Darcy Carroll, who moved to Los Angeles from Chicago only a month ago, likes Lizards, but prefers the pik me up. “I’m an interior designer,” she said, “and the decor at the pik me up is great. It’s unique and fun.” Indeed, the pik me up seems as much like a private club as a coffeehouse, with outlandish artwork on the walls and a patchwork decorating scheme that includes mosaics, a leopard-print curtain and an autographed photo of Patrick Swayze behind the coffee bar. Business there picks up in the wee hours on the weekends, when the clubs and bars close and night hawks flock to the pik me up to continue socializing until 4 a.m.

At Highland Grounds, co-owner Brenner plans to carve his niche by letting customers set the agenda. He has hung a calendar in one corner of the coffeehouse so patrons can pencil in activities that interest them. Since opening, they’ve seen evenings with activities as diverse as silk screen demonstrations and lectures on kung fu. They’ve had children’s storytellers in on Saturday mornings and hope to have an evening of “adult stories” sometime in the near future.

“Instead of exhibiting artwork, we’re going to be showing slides of artwork on the walls that will change throughout the evening,” Brenner said. “That idea came directly from one of our customers.”

And while habitues of the coffeehouses are specific about what they like, they’re also firm about what they don’t like. One local screenwriter went to one of the more celebrity-studded poetry readings--and came away decidedly unimpressed.

“It was so self-absorbed,” said the screenwriter, who asked not to be named. “One guy was even wearing a beret! (A well-known young actor) got up and read a poem about his drug addiction that he had scrawled in a tiny spiral notebook. Ally Sheedy read a poem about waiting for a call from her agent. Some of the real poets were good, but they were few and far between. Most of it was just things they should be telling their therapists.”

“Sometimes it does get a little pompous,” says Java patron Mikialian. “I’ve seen people reading the Communist Manifesto, and sometimes I have the feeling they’re carrying books they’ve never read.”

For those who can’t get enough caffeine, there are other venues related to the coffeehouse experience. Cafe Largo, an upscale nightspot in the Fairfax district, offers Poetry in Motion on Tuesday nights, an event often attended by well-known poets and actors. Other nights showcase the verse and prose of such writers as Barry Yourgrou and Exene Cervenka. Unlike most poetry venues, Cafe Largo charges admission. Poetry in Motion costs $5.

On the other hand, a cup of mud is free for those who attend the regular Saturday night coffeehouse at the Echo Park United Methodist Church. A tradition for 10 years, the church survives on donations and provides music and poetry for its Alvarado Street neighbors and others who drive in from all over the city.

Can L. A. support all these caffeinetoriums?

“I don’t look at it as competition,” says Brenner of Highland Grounds. “And this facility is so different, with a large bar and an outdoor courtyard, that people seem to look at it as an alternative.”

Gonzales of Lizards welcomes other coffeehouses. “We have a really select clientele,” he says. “We don’t care if this place is the most popular or the most packed. In fact, we don’t like it when it’s crowded. The competition is good because everybody doesn’t come crowding in here on Friday and Saturday nights.”