The Fat Lady Sings for Opera on Ocean

It’s an old restaurant-business maxim: The three most important factors for success are location, location, and location. Sometimes, though, location just isn’t enough--a fact illustrated by the impending demise of Opera on Ocean, at Ocean Avenue and Colorado in Santa Monica. Though the restaurant occupies a splendid corner of an attractive building with a beautiful view in the middle of a red-hot restaurant neighborhood--location in spades--it never found its audience, and will finally close for good this Saturday, Nov. 3. From this Tuesday through that date, the restaurant will serve dinner only.

Originally called simply Opera, the place was opened in 1987 by two then-proprietors of Trumps in West Hollywood, Jerry Singer and Doug Delfeld (the latter is now general manager at the Grill in Beverly Hills), with an ambitious pan-Mediterranean menu that was subsequently simplified. Last year, with the restaurant in financial difficulty, it was taken over by two investors in the enterprise, Lou and Bernice Weider. They simplified the menu still further, redecorated the dining room (not doing it any favors in the process), and brought in new chefs. Nothing helped. A few weeks ago, Opera general manager Charles Craig sent out a letter to regular customers reading simply, “The fat lady sings Saturday, November 3, 1990.”

“Basically,” says Craig, “we had two key problems. One was an identity thing with all the changes that have gone on in the restaurant. Secondly, there’s been just an incredible amount of restaurant activity in the Santa Monica area this year--the Broadway Deli, Remi, the Border Grill, I Cugini and so on--and that’s really cut into our business. I happen to believe that this is a temporary thing, that we could win a lot of customers back after the novelty of the new places dies out--but unfortunately we can’t wait out the tough period.”

The Weiders are currently negotiating with several potential purchasers for the site, Craig says, but no sale has been made. “Ironically,” he adds, “between the opening of Cirque de Soleil practically across the street and the mailer announcing our closing, October will probably be our best month since late spring.”

ALSO GONE: If location (etc.) doesn’t necessarily guarantee the success of a restaurant, neither does favorable critical response. Despite rave reviews in The Times and other publications, Truffles in West Los Angeles--an elegant contemporary, French-style restaurant opened earlier this year by businessman Arnold Friedman, with well-known local Japanese-born French chef Elmer Azuma in the kitchen--has folded. Azuma is now working as pastry chef at the Sakana Club in Brentwood. Friedman could not be reached for comment. . . . And Sabroso in Venice, whose imminent closing was announced recently in this column, has gotten a brief reprieve, and will remain open through Nov. 20. “I’d love to do something else in L.A. in the future if the right situation presents itself,” says Sabroso owner Jeanine Coyle, “but meanwhile I’m just going to take the dog and drive towards Guatemala.”

ANNIVERSARIES: The Studio Grill in Hollywood celebrates its 20th anniversary through Nov. 3, by offering regular customers one free a la carte main dish for every two new patrons they bring in to dinner. Then, from the 6th through the 10th, the restaurant will serve two-course dinners (appetizer and main dish) plus coffee or tea at the nostalgia-inducing price of $20 for two. Studio Grill proprietor Ardison Phillips also notes that Jesus Naranjo, the restaurant’s longtime chef before his departure last year, has returned to the kitchen. . . . Also celebrating an anniversary--its 10th--is Trumps in West Hollywood. No special observances are planned. . . . And Millie’s in Silverlake recently observed the 50th anniversary of its founding--sort of. The landmark diner originally opened in 1940 as a breakfast-only place called the Devil’s Mess. (Now there’s a restaurant name to conjure with!) It was renamed Millie’s, after a new owner, in the mid-1950s. There have been several other owners since then, the current one being a former Millie’s waitress known only as Magenta. Happy birthday, in any case. . . .

ON THE FRONT BURNER: Champagne in West Los Angeles honors France’s Rhone Valley, Monday through Nov. 4, with a $42-per-person fixed-price menu of rustic regional specialties and selected Rhone wines by the glass. . . . And from Monday through Wednesday, the Bicycle Shop Cafe in West Los Angeles observes its 15th anniversary by offering selected menu items at their original opening-day prices--among them onion soup gratinee at $1.50, stuffed trout at $3.50 and crepes filled with chocolate mousse at $2. . . . El Mocambo in West Hollywood encourages guests to come in costume on Halloween, Wednesday. “We’ll have big prizes for the best Lucy, the best Desi and the best Carmen Miranda,” says proprietor Perry Santos. “We’re offering three different fixed-price menus at two seatings, and we’re working out a deal with one of the better dance clubs so our customers can go on and make a night of it.” (Regarding a recent notice in the Times’ Business section that El Mocambo had recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Santos assures me that the restaurant is still going strong. “It really has nothing to do with us,” he says. “It’s just a licensing thing, related to a new restaurant we’re opening after the first of the year in Las Vegas”). . . . And the Wine Assn. at the Duke of Bourbon wine shop in Canoga Park hosts a five-course dinner, accompanied by the wines of Grgich Hills on Nov. 9 at the Calabasas Inn in Calabasas Park. The cost is $60 per person, and interested parties should call the Duke of Bourbon at (818) 341-1234 before Nov. 6 for reservations.