Quake Helps End Bikini’s Beach Party

After two years in business, Bikini in Santa Monica has closed. According to chef-owner John Sedlar, the closure is only temporary. Bikini reopened four days after the earthquake despite a smashed front door and a 20-foot dumpster full of old bricks sitting in front of the building, but the final straw came when the air conditioning went out Feb. 5.

“I need to regroup,” Sedlar says. “Like a lot of businesses right now, we are trying to get (a Small Business Administration) loan. I have an application that has taken me three days to fill out. It weighs 3 1/2 pounds.”

When Bikini first opened, Sedlar’s pricey menu was filled with dishes nobody had seen before, including air-dried chicken fajitas and bass schnitzel with spaetzle. And before the earth moved, Sedlar was about to open Abiquiu, a Southwestern restaurant named after a pueblo in northern New Mexico, where he grew up. Located on the Bikini patio, Abiquiu was going to be a more casual (read: cheaper), spicier version of St. Estephe, his former Manhattan Beach restaurant.

Now Sedlar is considering reopening the entire Bikini space as Abiquiu. “I’m very anxious to cook that kind of food again,” he says, “and I might.”

*

PLAYING BALL: You have until April 30 to eat your last meal at Sonora Cafe--at least at its current downtown location. After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a new lease with the owners of Union Bank Building’s Figueroa Court, Sonora’s Ron Salisbury is scouting the Westside and Pasadena for a new location. “I want to keep Sonora intact,” he says. “It’s like a veteran ballclub. After eight years you develop a crew. The first few years you may have a bunch of rookies and you don’t win anything, but then you start playing together and develop a following and the crowd’s behind you.”

One space that’s become available is Mario’s Cooking for Friends on Beverly. After unsuccessful lease negotiations with his landlord, owner Mario Martinoli has closed his 5-year-old restaurant-deli. He eventually wants to open another restaurant; for now says he’s going to stick to what he calls “food-related endeavors.”

*

LIGHTNING STRIKES: After several complaints from customers, Thunder Roadhouse on Sunset has dropped the 15% service charge it was adding to every bill. The boutique biker restaurant instituted the fee about three weeks after it opened because many of its customers were European tourists and they weren’t tipping. The problem was that most servers weren’t telling customers about the automatic tip, and on credit card bills, the charge wasn’t itemized. In the darkly lit restaurant it was hard to read the fine print on the slips that stated the policy. “Irate servers,” says owner Michael Eisenberg, “are much better than irate customers.”