Closing of Restaurant Means Losing a Connection to Friends

Like many other restaurants in the San Fernando Valley this year, Manhattan Coolers Bar and Cafe in Sherman Oaks has closed, another victim of the lingering recession.

Restaurants come and go, but for a group of regular customers, the closing of “Coolers” struck home. For the more than five years that it was open, Coolers was like a second home for them.

It was “Cheers” in the flesh. It was a place where any one of them could walk in on almost any night, and see someone they knew sitting at the bar. It had its own versions of “Cliff,” “Norm,” “Frazier” and other similar characters from the television series.

Over the years, managers, waitresses and waiters, bartenders and even busboys and cooks had come and gone, many to chase their dreams of becoming actors and actresses. But others also left to finish school and enter the world of business.

For the regular customers, there was no class separation between the paying customers and the employees. They were all friends who shared a common bond in the restaurant in the 14600 block of Ventura Boulevard. It was like a French cafe, where friends gathered to eat, drink and chat.

Plans were rarely made to meet. Somebody would always be there, and if not, the regulars could always chat with the bartender or one of the waiters or waitresses.

It didn’t matter what anybody did for a living. No one was trying to impress anyone else. The backgrounds of the regulars varied from a construction worker to a commodities broker. The attire varied from jeans and T-shirts to designer suits and ties. There were beer drinkers, and there were cognac drinkers.

They were of all colors.

Talks centered mostly on sports, politics and sex, not necessarily in that order. Regulars fell in and out of love with each new waitress, even though none of them actually dated any of them.

Or if they did, they didn’t tell the other guys about it.

The place had its share of romances and fights. A former manager and a bartender who met at the restaurant even got married, though it ended in divorce. Some regulars who got miffed over not getting a free drink--or for being cut off--left and never returned.

The closing of the restaurant Nov. 22 came quickly. The owner gave the word Sunday night to those working, and Monday morning there was a letter taped to the locked door, thanking patrons for their business. Those scheduled to work Monday were not even notified by the management.

One of the assistant managers found out about the closing only when she called another employee on Monday to cover her shift for her, discovering that she needed no replacement because her job had already vanished into the economy’s black hole.

But in retrospect, perhaps they should have seen the closing coming.

By the time it closed, the place had changed a good deal from what it was when it opened in 1987. Then, its combination of good, simple food and inexpensive prices packed the dining room. People had to wait for a table on many nights.

Its friendly and good-looking bartenders--both male and female--attracted both sexes to the bar. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays drew standing-room-only crowds. It was never a “meet market,” but you certainly could meet people of all ages and backgrounds, and, certainly, dates were made among people who met there.

But for more than a year, the crowds had been dwindling. Servers were being sent home early for lack of customers. The kitchen started closing earlier and earlier during the week.

There were nights when the bar was completely empty, not even a regular sitting there sipping a beer. The only conversation came from the television. The bar had begun closing by 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, just when popular bars start filling up, sending the bartenders into overdrive.

The ambience was changing. About a year ago, in a misguided attempt to attract more customers, the employees were told not to pay so much attention to the regulars and to talk more to new customers. Not only did that fail to attract new customers, it chased away some regulars.

Still, the group of hard-core regulars remained faithful. One of them was sitting at the bar on Sunday when the bad news was announced. He called others to spread the word.

Many were angry. One took a bar stool with him as a keepsake.

Two days later the employees gathered at the home of one worker and ceremoniously burned their uniforms in protest.

For the regulars, after the feeling sank in that they had lost their home-away-from-home, their thoughts turned to the employees--their friends--who were now out of jobs.

One waitress had recently quit a second job to concentrate more on school and was hoping to get more shifts at the restaurant. Another waitress who had been serving as an assistant manager was looking to cut back on her hours because it was cutting into her college studies. A third had planned to spend the Christmas holidays with her family in the Bay Area.

A busboy who got married last year is expecting his first child in a few months. Now, while most people’s thoughts turn to the holidays, they will have to concentrate on finding new jobs.

The closing of a restaurant has little personal impact on most people. There are plenty more places to eat and drink. But for this group of regulars, the closing of Coolers is not about dollars and cents, or even about eating and drinking.

It’s about losing a connection to friends, a band of comrades that came together in a special place, but who probably won’t see much of each other any more.