Puck Deal Brewing to Reopen Eureka

Eureka, the West L.A. restaurant owned by Wolfgang Puck and a number of partners, might be reopening. The owners of the Los Angeles Brewing Co. have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Eureka, which has been been closed since May 5th, is approximately $1 million in debt.

“We needed to do it to get organized,” says Puck, who owns only 10% of the business. “It doesn’t really mean anything.” The brewery failure has not affected Puck’s other operations--Spago in West Hollywood, Chinois on Main in Santa Monica, Granita in Malibu and Postrio in San Francisco. Each restaurant is a separate business entity with its own set of investors.

As part of the Eureka reorganization, Puck says he’s negotiating to divorce the beer-making facility from the highly profitable restaurant portion. “We are very close to a deal,” says Puck. “We are going to run the restaurant, and Sam Adams (Samuel Adams Boston Lager) will run the brewery, and pay us royalties.”

Since the restaurant has been closed for four months, many of Eureka’s principal staff members have gone on to new jobs. Chef Jody Denton is now cooking at Mark Miller’s hot, new Red Sage Grill in Washington, D.C. “Going back to Eureka,” says Denton, “would literally be going back right now.” Denton says his former sous chef, Mark Valiani, has been cooking at Spago since Eureka closed and “would be the logical choice to replace me.” Adds Denton, “Mark and I think very, very similar in food style.”

Meanwhile maitre d’ Fernand, (he doesn’t use a last name) is now working at Opus in Santa Monica, and would not consider going back to his old job. “I am very, very happy at Opus,” he says.

As for Puck, he says it’s been tough trying to reopen Eureka. “I have the money and everything together now,” he says, “but it’s been a nightmare. I want to be sure it’s enough money.”

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MEMORIES FOR SALE: In the summer of ‘61, Pearl Caretto locked up the Original Spanish Kitchen for the night, refilled the salt shakers, inverted the chairs neatly on the tables, and stuck a “closed for vacation” sign in the window. She never opened the restaurant again. Since its closing, the story of the deserted restaurant and its recluse owner grew apocryphal--it was even made into a murder episode of the “Lou Grant” television series. Thirty-one years later, a “For Sale” sign hangs on the ornate 4,000-square-foot building. The asking price: $1.295 million.

When Pearl and her husband, John, built the restaurant at 7373 Beverly Blvd. in 1932, it became an instant hangout for the stars of the day--Buster Keaton, Linda Darnell, Mary Pickford, Van Johnson, Bob Hope. The restaurant thrived until John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. When his wife closed the restaurant, it was to devote herself to him. John Caretto died in 1967 at the age of 75. His widow continued to live above the restaurant, alone, seeing no one. The dust gathered downstairs. When the building was vandalized in 1980, she moved--and refused to sell, until now.

The restaurant shows its age. The neon sign in the front of the building is broken, the iron balcony is rusting and the front is splattered with graffiti. “Over the years a lot of things have been stolen and the building has been broken into several times,” says Realtor Duncan Lemmon of Lee & Associates, “but the bigger stuff like all the kitchen equipment is still intact.” Lemmon says they have had a few offers on the place, but none serious enough for consideration. “I’ve talked to many people that have been chasing it for years,” he says, “and now when we’ve finally got it on the market, it’s at the worst possible time.”

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RODEO ANGEL?: Industry sources say chef-owner Evan Kleiman is close to signing a deal to open another Angeli concept on the site of Burke and Burke in the Rodeo Collection in Beverly Hills. “I can’t talk about it right now,” says Kleiman.

“That’s not true,” says Burke and Burke manager Robert Doyle, “we don’t plan to close. In fact, we are opening two more locations.”

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THREE NO TRUMPS: “It was dead, but we brought it back,” says Michael Roberts. Roberts and his partners put Trumps restaurant on the market last month, and he says there have been three bids. One was from himself and a new partner, who plan a totally new concept. “I gave the staff notice that they’d be out of work on September 5,” says Roberts, “but now it may not happen. I am trying to manage this so I can keep them, they’ve been really supportive.”

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OBITS AND NEAR OBITS: Sarno’s, the longtime Italian restaurant on Vermont famous for its late-night opera, has also closed, but the bakery will remain open. . . . Camille’s, a French restaurant in Sherman Oaks, has closed, and reopened with new owners as Camille’s Karaoke, a place to sing and eat Japanese food until 2 in the morning. . . . Fresco, Glendale’s best Italian restaurant, has closed. . . .the Bob Burns restaurant group has sold its Brentwood Bar and Grill to the Cheesecake Factory. “It’s kind of sad,” says spokesman Selwyn Yosslowitz, “but you have to do what’s right for the corporation.” . . . Local restaurant bread wholesaler Bread Only has been sold to Pizza Hut Korea Ltd., a major Pizza Hut franchisee based in Nashville.