Last Year’s Projects Still on the Back Burner

Early every January, I try to follow up on stories I’ve published in this column in the preceding 12 months--announcements of new restaurants, projected closings and such. This year, I’m doing it in mid-February. It’s, er, the economy.

Michael McCarty (of Michael’s in Santa Monica, etc.), who in the November election lost his bid to build a luxury hotel and community center on the beach in Santa Monica, has been negotiating since last summer to buy the Tivoli retail complex in Denver, site of his Adirondacks restaurant in that city. No deal has yet been signed.

Last year, the New York natural-foods restaurant, Luma, announced that it planned an outpost in Venice or Santa Monica. But now a Luma spokeswoman says, “We still want to do it. But so far we have nothing definite to report.”

John Thomas has been working since last spring to open Boheme, a two-story, 200-plus-seat combination restaurant and “lounge” in the old American Legion Hall on Robertson Boulevard. It was to debut in November. Now he says mid-February, which is about now.

There’s no news at all from Len Allison. He’s closed his upscale, Adam Tihany-designed Hubert’s in Manhattan, and was reported to be cooking on weekends at the New York vegetarian spot, Healthy Candle. But when I tried to call him there, he had left the establishment. Allison had wanted to open a spa-type restaurant in Southern California or Arizona, but I’ve heard no word of this possibility for at least six months.

When she left Atlas Bar & Grill abruptly last year, chef Victoria Granof said she planned to open a small bakery and breakfast-and-lunch place in the newly restored mid-town Chapman Market complex. Instead, she is now readying a combination tearoom and bookshop in Venice, called Queen of Cups.