24-Hour Pun & Games

“Eat now dine later” is the motto of Fred 62, the quirky new Los Feliz coffee shop. It’s emblazoned on the menu and painted in gothic lettering on the window outside. The parrot green-and-yellow coffee shop at the corner of Vermont and Russell avenues is named for partners Fred Eric, chef and owner of the eccentric Vida in the same trendy neighborhood, and Fred Sutherland, who designed the place with Eric. The 62 stands for their shared birth year. And, yes, as duly noted outside, “Two Freds Are Better Than One.”

Eric and Sutherland have turned the all-American coffee shop on its head. The booths are more like wraparound car seats, upholstered in dark green and pearl vinyl, and sprout cylindrical headrests. Nifty chrome stars on the walls and on the end of the booths are 62 inches apart; so are the lights. And the brackets supporting a border of metal car awnings are mounted every . . . 62 inches. There are gurgling iced tea dispensers, a pair of milkshake machines and the usual long counter, of course, with stools to accommodate lone diners. Oh, and toasters (four-slot Toastamatics) on every table, just like the old Ships coffee shops.

Open seven days a week, Fred 62 has become the hangout not only for the neighborhood but also for hipsters at loose ends any hour of the day or night. Part of its appeal is its wildly eclectic crowd, unusual in this cliquish city. First-time visitors tend to stare at the loopy menu, trying to make sense of it. Specials are listed on the front, no problem, then breakfast. Inside, left (lunch and dinner) and right (late supper) pages look virtually identical except for one item available only before 11 p.m., the Thai Cobb salad. The back page lists “Sides to help you decide.” Fred 62’s menu is intended for the picky eater in all of us, the one who longs to customize every dish by adding or subtracting elements: bacon ($2.62), shrimp ($3), bearded egg ($1.62), faux cheese ($1), avocado ($1.62), maple syrup (0.62 cents), just to name a few.

Not that the regular fare is exactly Beaver Cleaver territory. What do they mean by eggs in the hole, a.k.a. “Adam & Eve on a raft, turn’m real slow,” anyway? Or “Bearded Mr. Frenchy” and “Seoul-full noo*del?” Like Vida’s irreverent menu, this one is larded with lighthearted puns. Mostly I find them entertaining, but I can imagine the customer who frequented George’s, the coffee shop that Fred 62 replaced, dropping in for a cup of joe and two eggs over easy and being utterly bewildered.

Actually, eggs over easy show up with decent, if sometimes underdone, hash browns and a choice of meats. I order my eggs shirred, that ladylike preparation of eggs baked in a ramekin with a dab of butter and splash of cream. They come in a soup bowl, yolks hard, drowning in cream, with dribbles down the side of the bowl. And my sausage patty is charred on the bottom, steamed on top. Buttermilk flapjacks are just right, though, two fluffy, Frisbee-sized rounds with real maple syrup. “Bearded Mr. Frenchy,” French toast encrusted with cornflakes, is pretty good, too. And waffles are fine. Watch out for this breakfast special: “Hunka hunka pancake love,” embedded with chocolate chips, marshmallows, peanut butter and caramelized banana, is something only a 10-year-old could love. And, my personal favorite: “3 eggs & a bomb,” er, that is, “a belly bomb of a chili cheese omelet.” They’re not kidding.

The rest of the menu holds far more downs than ups. If you feel like a burger, go for the “Juicy Lucy,” stacked tall with all the fixings and crowned with a potato chip on a stick. The “Double J dog” is a rather ordinary “snap snappy dog” slathered with greasy chili a la Pink’s. All sandwiches come with homemade chips (good) or fries (most inexplicably limp), presented in a box folded from a brown paper bag spotted with grease. Carried over from Vida’s menu, “cali cali mari” (fried calamari) is tasty, if a bit oily and paired with a too-sweet pink tartar sauce. “Seoul Caesar” made the trip around the block, too, but not in such great shape. The baby romaine leaves, croutons and garlicky cabbage kimchi are plastered flat with so much sunset-colored dressing that we have to send it back. I do like the “62 chopper” though, a refreshing, crunchy mix of chopped iceberg, tomato and green beans in a buttermilk blue cheese dressing. And the hefty portion of “Mac Daddy and Cheese,” a bowl of excruciatingly rich elbow macaroni, cheddar and milk topped with buttered crumbs, is comfort food in its purest form.

Dinner specials are erratic. One night, a trio of moist crab cakes with a delicious roasted pepper mayonnaise is astonishingly good. But another time, a thick juicy pork chop is set down on refrigerator-cold mashed potatoes, and a $16 steak, “Ruth’s Morton Steakhouse Special,” turns out to be four mingy slices.

Day or night, you can get exotic-sounding noodles. I’ve tried all four of them, and with the exception of the “Seoul-full noo*del”--cold sweet potato noodles in a sesame dressing that could use more firepower--they’re uniformly bland and disappointing. They’re good ideas that need work.

At Fred 62, something always goes wrong. If they bring you coffee, they forget the cream. They drop off brioche or rye but without the butter and homemade jam. Waiters appear with dishes nobody ordered. And when your food finally does arrive, plates are invariably presented to the wrong person. (One day, a friend was having breakfast when the toaster beside her inexplicably burst into flames. “That’s a first,” her waiter remarked dryly.) Waiters here need to be unflappable. Most are real troupers, patiently trotting back to the kitchen to check on your order or a dish that’s missing in action. One night, coffee ice cream turns out to be walnut. Hmm, it came from a container labeled coffee, muses the red-headed waitress in hiking boots. When the kitchen finally finds the requested flavor, it has freezer burn. Tip: Order “Better Humor Bars” instead. What you get is a trio of miniature ice cream bars--strawberry cloaked in white chocolate, chocolate in dark chocolate and a pulpy delicious banana in milk chocolate and nuts.

If two Freds are better than one, Fred 62 could use a couple more to get this place in shape. It has plenty of style and wit, and some good, ambitious ideas. But it’s so disorganized that even benevolent-minded customers end up exasperated. The kitchen has enough trouble with the regular dishes, so the idea of letting people customize everything on the menu is crazy. The Freds need to simplify the menu and get some blazing short-order cooks behind the stoves before any more customers suffer burnout

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FRED 62

CUISINE: Wacky coffee shop fare. AMBIENCE: A souped-up version of the ‘60s coffee shop with counter, booths, jukebox. BEST DISHES: “Bearded Mr. Frenchy,” the “62 chopper,” “Mac Daddy and Cheese,” “Juicy Lucy Burger,” “Better Humor Bars.” No beer or wine. FACTS: 1850 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles; (213) 667-0062. Open 24 hours year-round. Breakfast and sandwiches, $2.62 to $7.62; dinner specials, $7.62 to $16.62. Street parking, with valet parking on Russell Avenue.