Still Quaking, Sure, but Baking Too

Carol Krug worked late two weeks ago, until 2 a.m., cleaning up after a Sunday-night staff party at Bob Burns restaurant in Woodland Hills. She needn’t have bothered.

Two-and-a-half hours later, toppled restaurant equipment, broken glass and shattered china were strewn everywhere, the result of the 6.6-magnitude earthquake.

“This is a big restaurant and we had a big mess,” says Krug, who is general manager of Bob Burns. “Just about everything broke.”

But a week later, after work crews repaired cracked walls and cleaned carpets, after the gas company restored service, the Woodland Hills restaurant opened for dinner.

Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks wasn’t as lucky. “We don’t know if there is structural damage or not,” says CEO Tom McFall. “They may be able to fix the building, but I’m not overly optimistic.” The Northridge Hamlet fared much better and is already open, as are the rest of the popular chain’s stores.

Hamburger hangout Johnny Rockets on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, however, probably won’t reopen. Structural damage has left the space beyond repair and most of the restaurant equipment has already been carted off to the chain’s Westwood location. “The whole front wall came out,” says Jennifer Smith, general manager of the Johnny Rockets on Melrose, “and the owner thinks it too far gone to rebuild.” Still, she doesn’t rule out the possibility of the company finding another location to open in the area.

While the earthquake and its aftershocks damaged restaurants all over the Southland, surprisingly few restaurateurs plan to close their places permanently. Art Ginsburg, for instance, was seen in TV interviews and in newspaper articles vowing to reopen his Art’s Deli in Studio City. The 37-year-old hangout was destroyed by a fire that followed the quake.

Studio City’s Bistro Garden at Coldwater Canyon is expected to reopen too--in about a month, according to manager Freddy Kernbach. “We lost everything,” he says, “but we did better than the other tenants. Fortunately, when the center was built they knew the space was going to be a restaurant, so everything was reinforced.”

Down the street at Laurel Canyon, the Daily Grill is still drying out. Its sprinklers were activated by the big jolt and ran for several hours. Owner Robert Spivak estimates that the restaurant will remain closed six to eight weeks.

Il Mito in Studio City suffered significant interior breakage and water damage, but reopened this past Monday after a quick remodel job.

“I lost my entire liquor room and we are down to a dozen wineglasses,” says Orleans owner Mary Atkinson. Still, the West L.A. restaurant was back in business, albeit hard-up for stemware.

At Junior’s deli, also in West L.A., the domed glass ceiling in the main dining room caved in, refrigerators overturned, and two giant griddles fell on the floor. Owner Marvin Saul had just canceled the restaurant’s earthquake insurance. “I’m back in hock,” he says. Fortunately, expectations of reopening two-thirds of the deli by the weekend were fulfilled. But the damage seemed like nothing, however, when Saul learned that his sister-in-law was crushed to death during the collapse of the Northridge Meadows apartment building.

“When you go to the coroner’s office and then you go to the morgue,” says Saul, “anything else is secondary.”

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BERNARD’S LIST: Opening a restaurant just isn’t as easy as it used to be, even for Bernard Erpicum, who knows practically everyone in town. The former Spago maitre d’, who has been trying to open a restaurant since he left Spago last July, finally snagged his last investor in the limited partnership last week. He is now shooting for a March 25 opening date in the original Morton’s space on Melrose. Eclipse will open only for dinner and offer a seafood- and fish-oriented menu. “It’s harder to raise a half a million today than $5 million 10 years ago,” moans Erpicum, “but I did it.”