They’re Back--Coffeehouses Are Percolating Again in the ‘90s

The Unicorn, the Cafe Renaissance, the Bit, Caffe Espresso, the mysterious Positano in Malibu and other L.A. area coffeehouses of the ‘60s are long gone--but a coffeehouse revival has recently visited our city, bringing us instead such establishments as Java, Mama Pajama, Highland Grounds, the Living Room and the new Axe (pronounced “ah-SHAY”) in Santa Monica.

Now veteran restaurant manager Lawrence Casperson wants to, as he says, “up the ante” with a new coffeehouse-plus, which he plans to call the King’s Road Espresso Bar Cafe.

Casperson, a transplanted San Franciscan, has worked for Bay Area restaurant entrepreneur Sam Du Vall since 1981 as a part of the management team that opened Izzy’s Steak and Chop House and Samantha’s in San Francisco and the Ritz Cafe and the Sugar Shack in L.A. (Du Vall has just invested the Sugar Shack, incidentally, with a new menu, a new chef and a new name--Mango Reef.) Now, Casperson is joining forces with two fellow San Franciscans--City Restaurant head chef Wendy Brucker (who also cooked at Stars and Square One in S.F.), who will create the King’s Road menu and consult on the food while retaining her position at City, and Bay Area artist Michael Brennan, who will design the cafe’s interior. “This is kind of an ‘old friends from San Francisco’ venture,” offers Casperson.

“I’m actually a big fan of places like the Living Room and Java,” he continues, “but I want to do something a little different. We’re going to offer food that’s something like you might typically see at a cafe in Italy-- panini sandwiches, a couple of little pizzas, pannetone toast for breakfast, things like that.”

King’s Road, to be located on the corner of that street and Beverly Boulevard, approximately across the street from the Mandarette, is scheduled to open in September.

NEW TABLES IN TOWN: Mauro Vincenti is about to open Pazzeria, which he describes as “the pizzeria of Pazzia”--on the site of the original Pazzia bar, across the courtyard from the restaurant itself, and in a space adjacent to the bar that he has recently taken over on La Cienega Boulevard. “Pizza, pasta and vegetables” will be the theme, Vincenti says . . . A new La Salsa has debuted in the Marina Marketplace complex in Marina del Rey--the first unit of the fast-food Mexican chain to be a full-scale restaurant, complete with 100 seats, waiter service and a full bar. This one is a franchise, owned by Michael Condon, once a manager of the Ginger Man in Beverly Hills and later co-owner of the now-closed Wave in Santa Monica. . . . Meanwhile, the California Pizza Kitchen chain has just opened its latest restaurant, the 14th, on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City . . . Richard and Jennifer Chang, owners of the tiny Chang’s Kitchen in Beverly Hills, have launched the full-sized Chang’s Szechwan and Seafood Restaurant in Palms. (Various members of the Chang family also own restaurants in West L.A., Brentwood and Encino.) . . . And scheduled for an Aug. 20 opening is Caffe Zaretti in Northridge, to be opened by Giancarlo Zaretti, former proprietor of L’Etoile in West L.A. and Pontevecchio in Santa Monica.

RESTAURANT MISCELLANY: The Bistro in Beverly Hills is closed for summer vacation until August 27th. . . . J.W.’s Restaurant in the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Century City features the wines of Sterling Vineyards and dishes prepared from Sterling kitchen recipes in the latest installment of its “cuisine of the wine country” series, through next Sunday, the 19th. . . . Emilio’s in Hollywood has started serving lunch: Thursdays and Fridays only.