The Disco Beat Alive Again at Roy’s at Shain’s

“Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear,” reads the flier that customers receive upon entering Roy’s at Shain’s, a sort of restaurant-within-a-restaurant that operates Thursday nights only at Shain’s on Ventura Boulevard.

Here, “yesteryear” is the height of the disco era, when Donna Summer was queen and David Geffen was still working on his first $10 million. Listen to the music: “Disco Inferno,” “Brick House,” “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty.” Look at the crowd--mostly producers, record executives and various music-industry hangers-on. And check out your host, Roy Silver, looking tan and fit and happy as a clam to have his old gang together again.

Silver, who ran the restaurant Roy’s on Sunset from 1976-82, once managed Bob Dylan, Bill Cosby and Tiny Tim. In recent years, though, most of his publicity has come from a line of men’s skin-care products created by his wife Linda. Now he’s reviving his restaurant.

To drink, there are Roy’s special pre-dinner beverages: blue margaritas and New York-style egg creams. To eat, there is Roy’s same interpretation of Brooklynized Chinese food that never impressed critics, even back in the old days. For $40 per person, prix fixe , you can relive Roy’s pork-fried rice, his drunken shrimp, his “600-year-old” chicken and his Chinese spare ribs, all served family style in big glass bowls. Forty dollars might be a lot to pay for what is basically takeout-quality Chinese food, so with the check Roy serves his piece de resistance: frozen Halloween-size Snickers and Milky Way bars, still in their paper wrappers.

Roy’s at Shain’s, 14016 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 769-3223.