RESTAURANT REVIEW : Coffee-Shop Retro Meets Italian

Imagine Grappa, the Italian dinner house on Sunset Strip where Nick Edenetti regularly sings his Frank Sinatra repertoire, spawning its own version of Johnny Rockets and you’ll have a fairly good feel for what the Jukebox Cafe is about: a ‘50s-style coffee shop that, in addition to burgers, malts and tuna melts, serves pasta, pizza and bruschetta. “Buon Appetito!” says the menu.

The Jukebox Cafe, in fact, seems like a convergence of smart business moves. Fifties revival joints and Italian cafes have both turned to solid gold in this town. And the location--cater-corner to Spago, Book Soup, Tower Records and down the street from a dozen music and comedy clubs--couldn’t be more central. The patio is perched over one of the more lively intersections in Los Angeles. Prices couldn’t be more reasonable. A hamburger is $3.25, an individual pizza is $5.50. Eggs any style? $3.50. What’s more, the Jukebox is open 24 hours a day.

So why isn’t this place teeming?

Well, it’s only a couple of months old, and there’s still a tentative feel to the place, as if nobody’s really moved in yet.

Part of this comes from the fact that there are no jukeboxes at the Jukebox Cafe. At least not yet. The arrival of an old Wurlitzer is rumored. Meanwhile, the small front room has a dome ceiling that is painted like the red and golden dome of a Wurlitzer. The desired effect, I suppose, is that as you sit there eating lunch, you are actually inside a Wurlitzer. Your point of view is that of an old 45. Dizzying, if you think about it.

The rest of the place has a hard-edged fashionably austere look. But the white walls, black Formica-topped tables and abundance of glass creates the acoustics of an echo-chamber. There are no curtains, no carpeting, no tablecloths, nothing to absorb any of the sounds. Sometimes there’s an oldies station playing at a reasonable volume, but other times KROQ, with its near-eternal stretches of commercials, blares over the speakers. With the kitchen clattering and the customers jabbering, it all converges into an indistinguishable barrage. Each time I’ve eaten inside there I’ve reached a point when I become almost frantic to leave--no matter how much food remains on my plate. Pushing open the door and emerging into the mere urban noise of traffic and street-life is always an enormous relief.

The food is inexpensive and sufficient. Spicy chicken wings are indeed spicy and pretty irresistible. The Jukebox hamburger with avocado, bacon and onion is a good, drippy mess of a burger served with an abundant supply of OK French fries. The Caesar salad is huge and decent. The tuna melt is perfectly average.

The Philadelphia steak sandwich is a small, pug-like version of the messy Philly cheese-steaks I’m used to, but its small roll is filled with a tasty mix of peppers, cheese and cut-up steak. One milkshake can make two people plenty happy.

Spaghetti alla checca , with fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil, shows the Jukebox connection with Grappa’s competent Italian cooking.

Breakfast at the Jukebox needs work, though the prices make it hard to complain too stridently. Huevos rancheros , two fried eggs on two corn tortillas with salsa, are fine. All the egg dishes are served with garlicky, greasy home-style potatoes.

Once, I ordered a cheese omelet, which was made with fresh spinach, but the eggs were dry and the American cheese tucked inside was unmelted.

Service, in keeping with the overall atmosphere is tentative--slow, intermittent, occasionally attentive, but often barely present. Eating there, you get the feeling that at any moment someone could come in and call the whole enterprise off. That would be too bad because a 24-hour cafe with reasonable prices on the Sunset Strip isn’t such a bad idea.

Jukebox Cafe, 8788 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. (310) 289-9758. Open 24 hours. No alcohol. MasterCard, Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $10 to $30. Minimum charge per table, $8.