Grinding to a Halt

The independents are losing one of their own.

On Sunday, the Daily Grind coffeehouse in downtown Ventura will pour its last cup of dark roast, steam its final espresso and bid adieu to a clientele that chose to hang out and do business there for its free-spirited bent.

The reason for the store’s departure: Owner Jim Luttjohann, who opened the shop in 1993, got into a bit of a fracas with his out-of-town landlord. In the end it was a rent thing. The two parties have agreed to end the legal wrangling, and parting terms are in final stages.

Luttjohann is looking to land another location, but that is going to take awhile, if it happens at all, he said. Furst Enterprises of Los Angeles will look for another tenant. And loyal clients will have to find another joint to buy their coffee.

Maybe the most significant loss for customers is the aspect of the Daily Grind as cultural outpost. The shop, with its adjoining performance space, had a revolving door for local and visiting poets and musicians offering folk, jazz, blues, experimental and more.

Its walls served as an eclectic exhibit space for local professional artists like MB Hanrahan and her recent colorful--and for the most part, nude--photographs of herself. High school students and other neophytes were occasionally given their first public displays. Also of note, the popular Arcade Poetry series, held at the shop for years, will move to the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard.

“The Daily Grind became a backbone of the arts scene here,” said longtime patron Phil Taggart, who also handled curating duties at the shop and administers the Arcade series. “It was a center point of the downtown cultural enclave.”

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Daily Grind, at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets, was conceived when Luttjohann first noticed that Main Street lacked the kind of coffeehouse haunt he once frequented in Los Angeles. Before he would attempt ownership, Luttjohann served an apprenticeship at a small, independent coffee shop in Ojai. The owners shared their mistakes and ideas.

“I had a bigger success than I ever dreamed of having in the first year or two,” Luttjohann said. “We went like gangbusters right from the beginning.”

If coffee chain stores attract the mainstream, Daily Grind was proud to offer a home to the alternative. Its success as a coffee-culture house catapulted Luttjohann into civic involvement, a role he hadn’t envisioned. He was approached to serve on the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission, a request he accepted. He also is a founding board member of the Ventura Chamber Music Festival and serves on the local tourism board.

“I literally don’t think I would have been able to become nearly as involved in the community if it had not been for the success of the Daily Grind,” he said.

There has been a lot of rumbling that still another independent downtown shop owner was given the boot to make way for the corporate chain gang. Word on the street spread that Starbucks’ arrival was being negotiated.

Not true, according to Furst property manager Matthew Rodman. “We haven’t talked with them in a long, long time,” he said. “That is not imminent at all.”

Furst Enterprises, Rodman said, has no bias against independent tenants. In fact, he said, the Daily Grind’s performance space has already been secured by a longtime Ventura jeweler who will soon be moving to the prime address. The other half of the building may or may not be leased to a food/coffee retailer, Rodman said.

“We’ve had tons of inquiries,” he said. “We’re not sure who we are going to put in there.”

Daily Grind, considered Ventura’s only weekly poetry venue, will hold a finale Saturday, with open mike sign-ups starting at 7:30 p.m. The store is at 607 E. Main St., Ventura. Call 641-1679 for more information.

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Fill ‘er up: One of the area’s more popular events of its kind, the Ventura County Food & Wine Festival, will hold sway at The Oaks shopping center Sunday evening.

Now in its 15th year, the Conejo Valley Rotary fund-raiser has again signed up an array of purveyors. Among the many restaurants and caterers serving up the delectables will be Le Rendezvous, Sisley Italian Kitchen, Taj of India, Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill, and Kay’s Gourmet Catering. Representatives from about 40 California wineries--with local and regional participants--will pour their wares.

New for this year, event-goers who like to arrive early to watch vendors set up their stations will be served hors d’oeuvres while they wait for the event to begin. Also new this year is a slightly more expensive ticket.

“We felt by raising the price it would better serve our charities,” said event chairman Vern Dransfeldt. The hope also is to draw fewer people, he said. The reason: Over the years the event has grown considerably, and so have the lengthy lines for the different sample stations, which take up much of the mall’s first level.

“We just want to make it a more enjoyable experience for those in attendance,” Dransfeldt said.

DETAILS

The Ventura County Food & Wine Festival will be held from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday at The Oaks shopping center, 222 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. Enter at the east end of the mall, near Johnny Rockets. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door. Call for advance tickets and more information at 371-1500.

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Creeping, crawling cuisine: Biologist David George Gordon’s day job is writing science books, like the “Field Guide to the Slug” and “The Compleat Cockroach.” He is also a recreational foodie and author of “Eat A Bug Cookbook.”

Why should this matter? Well, open-minded gourmands and other adventurous types willing to try anything once might be interested in checking out Gordon’s cooking demonstration March 5 at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Gordon will prepare and serve a couple of recipes from his humorously written book, which has 33 concoctions reflective of indigenous cuisines from various cultures.

The event will begin with a show-and-tell session with Gordon displaying a variety of arthropods and assorted creatures that are commonly consumed around the world. And to get you in the mood for the main event, there will be a screening of a video that shows native Venezuelans catching, cooking and eating giant tarantulas.

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Bring an appetite for Gordon’s “Orthopteran Orzo,” a pasta salad served warm and highlighting the mild shrimp flavor of tender, 4-week-old cricket nymphs. Also on the menu: “Sheesh! Kebabs”--skewered lubber grasshoppers--and “Scorpion Scallopini,” which calls for hairy desert scorpions raised in the Tucson area.

“We will go to great lengths to make sure this is a gourmet experience and not just some oddball throwing bugs into a wok,” Gordon said on the telephone from his home in Port Townsend, Wash.

Chef Gordon will provide cooking tips (don’t overcook bugs because the moisture inside of them builds up as steam and they can burst like a balloon), and he will discuss health benefits. Take the termite, a very rich source of iron, or the grasshopper, which offers six times the protein of lean ground beef.

There will be matching wine tips and suggestions for hosting your own bug banquet for friends and family.

And for those partaking in the munching, Gordon will hand out his personalized teeth-cleaning implements.

“Because of the crunch of the bug’s outer skeleton,” Gordon said, “a toothpick is a good thing to have.”

DETAILS

David George Gordon, author of “Eat A Bug Cookbook,” will present a cooking demonstration and lecture at 2 p.m. March 5 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 2559 Puesta Del Sol Road. Free with paid museum admission: $6 general; $5 senior citizens and students; $4 children. Call 682-4711.

Rodney Bosch writes about the restaurant scene in Ventura County and outlying points. He can be reached at 653-7572, fax 653-7576 or by e-mail at: rodney.bosch@latimes.com.