A Lot on Their Plate : Quake-damaged eateries are making repairs as fast as possible. Some that remained open offered a comfortable place to go in the aftermath.

“We are crushed,” said a banner stretched over the ruins of Johnny Rockets in Sherman Oaks. “Shocking!” said a sign on the crumpled Hamburger Hamlet on nearby Van Nuys Boulevard.

The Reseda Kentucky Fried Chicken flew its KFC flag at half-mast. Around the corner from the devastated Northridge Meadows apartment complex, a small, rather plaintive hand-lettered sign tacked over the rubble-strewn entrance of a strip mall promised “BBQ Open.”

“I was in tears when I saw it,” Tom McFall, president of Hamburger Hamlet Restaurants Inc., said of the Sherman Oaks location. But a deeper inspection of the building in which it is a tenant revealed no structural damage. The restaurant could be open again by mid-March. “Isn’t that amazing?” McFall marveled.

Ronn Teitelbaum, chairman of the board of Johnny Rockets, said he doesn’t know the fate of the Sherman Oaks location, a neon landmark across the street from Tower Records on Ventura Boulevard.

“That was the fourth or fifth restaurant in the chain that we opened about seven years ago, so we have a sentimental reason we’d like to keep that one open,” he said.

In the Northridge Market Place, on Nordhoff Street between Corbin and Tampa avenues, both Cafe Como and California Cucina are closed temporarily but hope to reopen.

At 9080 Tampa in Northridge, Chi Chi’s was severely damaged and probably won’t open for as long as three months, said Joan Rusen, whose family owns six Chi Chi’s restaurants in the quake zone.

“The wall along Tampa moved down eight inches, and the Nordhoff wall bowed out,” she said. “Everything inside twisted and turned, and 1,000 pounds of pizza ovens just tumbled over. We hope they work. We haven’t had a chance to check them. Chandeliers fell. You couldn’t walk through the place. It was just a catastrophe, terrible.”

Lee Healy, public relations manager for El Torito, said the chain’s Northridge location at 8855 Tampa Ave. appeared to be seriously damaged but is expected to open by Valentine’s Day.

“We fared worse than most of the other restaurants (in the area), who were up and running within a couple of days,” said Healy. “But luckily it was mostly cosmetic damage.”

Teitelbaum, like many others, was thankful the 6.6 temblor struck in the wee hours of the morning when the busy, counter-service burger shop was closed.

“I don’t know if we would have had any deaths, but there definitely would have been some serious injuries,” Teitelbaum said. “The hood fell in on the grill, the ceiling fell in, glass broke and the building is probably going to be condemned. People are looking at it right now to see if we can rebuild. So I guess we’ve suffered like everybody, but not as bad as a lot.”

Several other restaurants were closed for briefer periods of time while repairs were made, including Alexi’s Greek restaurant and its Japanese-cuisine neighbor, Musashi, both housed in a shopping mall in the 9000 block of Tampa Avenue.

Many residents of the Valley checked immediately to see how favorite haunts had fared in the disaster.

“A lot of people miss us, and we miss them,” said John Beauchamp, manager of Truly Yours, a small cafe at 9725 Reseda Blvd. in Northridge, which was closed for repairs and repainting. He planned to reopen as soon as he could get a city inspector out to give him the OK.

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Giuliano’s Delicatessen, which shares a parking lot with Truly Yours, has a “limited entry” tag on the building.

Rusen said the five other Chi Chi’s restaurants in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita managed to reopen within two days of the quake. “Our customers were just so glad to have a familiar place to go,” she said.

Teitelbaum said two of the restaurant’s other Valley locations reopened immediately after the quake, though they ran out of supplies. “We were able to at least get some people some food who said, ‘Thank God you’re open because you’re the only ones and we have nowhere to go.’ We weren’t even charging at the end, because we couldn’t put the proper sandwiches together. So we just said, ‘Here, take it.’ ”

In Studio City, Art Ginsburg said he hopes to reopen his neighborhood treasure Art’s Delicatessen in about three months. The Bistro Garden suffered considerable cosmetic damage but hopes to be up and running in about a month. The Daily Grill in the new mall at Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards had extensive water damage and will be closed six to eight weeks.

But Cafe Cordiale, at 14015 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, and Maria’s Italian Kitchen, 23000 Ventura Blvd. in Woodland Hills, lost their buildings to fires. Both hope to relocate in the same neighborhoods.

Elsewhere along restaurant-thick Ventura Boulevard, the effects of the quake could still be seen two weeks after the fact. In Studio City, the Gaucho Grill sign was half gone. Down the street, scaffolding obscured part of Il Mito, although valet parkers were on duty.

The Wine Bistro’s awning was tattered. Siam was open behind boarded-up windows. The second-floor California Pizza Kitchen had a huge, hand-lettered “Open!” sign that directed patrons around the damaged escalator to the stairs or elevator.

In Sherman Oaks, a healthy contingent of java hounds sat beneath boarded-up windows at Starbuck’s coffee shop to watch the post-quake bustle along the boulevard.

Mel’s Drive-In was open again after repairing broken windows. The Orion Cafe in the Radisson Valley Center Hotel posted a sign promising, “We will reopen for business soon.”

Like neighbor meeting previously unknown neighbor in the wake of the quake, customers realized the bond they share with proprietors of their favorite eateries, and vice versa.

A sign on the Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks, forlorn behind yellow “Caution” tape, said: “Although we regret our loss, we are sincerely concerned about yours. We at Hamburger Hamlet wish you a speedy recovery.”

Rusen said that only days after the quake, the Chi Chi’s restaurant chain receive a thank you letter from a grateful customer in Santa Clarita whose home was severely damaged. “She said she was saying to her daughter just a few minutes after the quake, ‘I wonder when Chi Chi’s will be open?’ ”

“Everybody’s been calling. It’s nice,” said Beauchamp at Truly Yours. “You look around and things are a mess, but everybody wished you well and wants to know how you are. It actually makes you feel pretty good.”