Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Attitude

From the vantage of my red and green vinyl booth, it’s easy to eavesdrop on three miniskirted waitresses and their two goateed chums sitting at the counter by the cash register. The apex of the conversation: whether the young man who just left was in the cast of the original “Porky’s.” Just another Thursday morning at Swingers, the new wave retro Americana diner in the ever-trendy Fairfax District.

It’s no surprise that since Sean MacPherson and Jon Sidel took over the coffee shop of the Beverly Laurel Hotel three years ago, the place has become a magnet for L.A.’s young and attitudinal. MacPherson and Sidel were already packing them in at their clubs Olive (now closed) and Smalls, and have since opened Good Luck and Jones Hollywood. (MacPherson, in partnership with Chateau Marmont’s owners, also opened Bar Marmont.) Swingers furthers their status as the only Los Angeles restaurateurs who consistently attract the sort of late-20ish patrons who drive mid-’60s convertibles and wear their sometimes tenuous Industry connections as casually as Oakleys.

And they flock to Swingers. On weekend mornings, when the table-wait spills onto the sidewalk, the crowd looks camera-ready for a Details magazine shoot despite the second-day beards and tousled bangs. (Yes, their precise dishevelment seems to say, I’m unbearably attractive even now but you should have seen me last night.) It’s all 501s and hip-huggers and tiny, navel-revealing, sherbet-colored T-shirts. Not to be outdone, the Swingers staff is costumed in Calvin Klein-meets-pit-crew-mechanics shirts and black jeans and miniskirts.

MacPherson is studiously vague on why Swingers connects with its audience. “I always wanted to do a coffee shop and it just came together when we finally found the right location,” says the Los Angeles native, one of a long list of artists and entrepreneurs who have opened businesses on the stretch of Beverly between La Brea and La Cienega in the last few years.

“People don’t get vibed here,” adds Swingers manager Warner Ebbink, noting the restaurant’s attraction for the famous, the semi-famous and the merely recognizable. “Most of the people who work here are in the business too.” Ah.

The lively scene at Swingers has, by osmosis, had a dramatic impact on the once dowdy Beverly Laurel Hotel. Mel Adler, whose family built the hotel in the late 1960s, says his clientele has changed dramatically and business has been way up since Swingers transformed the hotel diner into a space featuring huge Warhol knockoffs and brightly tiled walls with heart-shaped American flag mosaics.

“It was quieter before,” says Adler. “Now we have models, musicians, actors, you name it. It’s a little noisier but they’re a very nice group and mostly well-behaved. We like the change.”

With his new clientele in mind, Adler recently embarked on an upgrade of his own. Art Deco decor has replaced the hotel’s traditional furnishings, and funky kitchenettes have been added to 10 of the 52 rooms, which still rent for between $51 and $61 a night.

“We have a symbiotic relationship with the hotel,” says MacPherson. After breakfast one morning I wander into the hotel courtyard and find the Rugburns, a San Diego band recovering from the previous night’s gig at Dragonfly, packing a large blue van with “St. Joseph’s Catholic School” stenciled on the back. “They take care of you here,” says Stinky, the band’s gregarious drummer. “They let us park our van in the courtyard instead of on the street because all our stuff is in it.” Looking like a punk wrangler in his tan cowboy hat and combat boots, Stinky is eager to fill me in on the details of a brief romance he had the previous year with an Italian model also staying at the hotel. “You can always find love at Swingers and the Beverly Laurel,” he says, laughing as the band’s manager pulls him into the already moving van.