LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Judging Candidates by Their Meatloaf : Restaurateurs Griego, Riordan Believe Their Business Savvy Will Help at City Hall

Linda Griego and Richard Riordan want to be mayor. Neither has ever run a city. They have, however, operated two of the most successful restaurants in downtown Los Angeles.

She owns Engine Co. 28, where the menu proudly offers a New York steak that has been aged for 28 days. He owns the Original Pantry Cafe, where they would sooner serve poison than a steak that has been sitting around for a month.

OK, so maybe you cannot judge a mayor by his (her?) meatloaf. But with 52 candidates in the race and less than 12 weeks before the primary, what else have you got to go on?

Mike Rankin stared into a brimming plate and asked himself what a pile of roast beef and potatoes floating in a pool of brown gravy could tell him about Dick Riordan.

“He’s not out for a buck. He gives you more than your money’s worth,” Rankin said after a while. “I think I might vote for him.”

Two blocks up the street, a Caesar salad topped with grilled chicken breast was telling Chester Curtice a few things about Linda Griego.

“She has good taste, she is service-oriented and seems to anticipate the needs of the people,” he concluded, poking his chicken with a fork.

Food is no stranger to politics. George Bush had a public war with broccoli. Ronald Reagan did wonders for the popularity of jellybeans. The Clintons made headlines when they banned French cuisine from the White House menu in favor of American cooking.

“If a person runs a successful restaurant, which is a difficult thing to do, it indicates this is a person who is competent, ambitious and diligent,” Curtice, a retired lawyer, expounded while sipping Classic Coke from a fancy glass at Engine Co.’s granite bar.

Politically, Griego and Riordan are in many ways opposites: She is a moderate Democrat; he is a conservative Republican. He is rich; she is fund-raising. His priority is more police; hers is more jobs.

And nowhere is their polarity more apparent than in their restaurants:

His place never closes. Hers books two luncheon seatings, 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

His tables are topped with Formica. Hers are in white linen.

Her waiters wear Ralph Lauren polo shirts; his wear Dick Riordan for Mayor buttons.

At his place, the cashier sits behind a cage, cash only. Hers accepts American Express.

His nine daily specials were all meat. Her four daily specials were all fish.

He brings Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in for lunch. Mahony asks her chef for his rice pudding recipe.

Not to mention that the restaurants have been locked in something of a meatloaf war for several years. Engine Co. serves it with cumin and red peppers. The Pantry serves it in mass quantities.

What does their meatloaf say about their ability to govern? We asked them.

Griego: “Meatloaf is friendly, meatloaf is approachable. People know meatloaf. You don’t have to explain it.”

Riordan: “We’ve got to get back to basics, like meatloaf. Let’s forget the gourmet foods. Serve what we’re best at and serve a lot of it.”

Considering their diverse backgrounds, it seems odd that Riordan and Griego would have wound up dueling restaurateurs just two blocks apart in the shadow of Figueroa’s skyscrapers, much less on the road to City Hall.

She started out climbing poles for the telephone company and going to college at night. She opened a chili stand with 16 seats on La Cienega Boulevard, sold the stand a couple of years later at a break-even price and borrowed $50,000 to invest in Engine Co. After spending two years fighting the city bureaucracy to remodel the place (53 variances were secured), she decided that there had to be an easier way to run a city. Recently, Griego resigned as deputy mayor to seek higher office. As she puts it: “I’ve been on the other side of the counter.”

Riordan is a successful venture capitalist worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. He has a thriving investment banking concern and is considered a world-class deal maker. He also prides himself on relating to the common man, giving generously to several worthy causes. (He recently sold his Japanese luxury car and bought a Ford Explorer.) He bought the Pantry for $3.5 million in 1980, when it was already a 55-year-old institution. The waiters like him so much they hardly ever quit.

“I would do anything I could to get him elected mayor,” manager Duane Burrell said fondly. “Unfortunately, I live in Orange County and can’t vote.”

So, is running a restaurant anything like running a city? A little.

Said Griego: “It’s having been a small business owner, understanding what it’s like to meet a payroll, to be in business in the recession, to make the hard decisions--like cutting employee hours.”

Said Riordan: “The restaurant defines me. It’s well run, a good value for the dollar, something I am proud of.”

These two candidates have many sides, not all of them culinary. In the next few weeks, there will be literature to read, rhetoric to ponder, forums to attend.

If all else fails, however, try the meatloaf.

* KATZ’S CAMPAIGN PLAN: Richard Katz plans to make his name known. B4