Here’s to the Queen of an Earlier Newspaper Era

It is comforting to realize in these troubled times that there is always Alice.

She sails through the boozy confines of the Red Dog Saloon like a schooner before the wind, all trim and determined, straying neither this way nor that.

Call her name aloud in the course of her mission and she will most likely ignore you, but, fear not, your sound will register and your drink will be forthcoming.

And she will know what you’re drinking, even if you have only come to the storied bar on 2nd Street once or twice, for Alice, Sweet Alice, is the best at what she does.

Her full name is Alice Broude. For 49 years she has been a waitress at the restaurant-bar once named the Redwood, now the Redwood 2nd Street Saloon, but known to generations of habitues as the Red Dog.

This is a port of choice for those who toil for the L.A. by God Times, a place beyond deadlines, demanding editors, foolish policies and often self-imposed anxieties.

The Red Dog, in fact, once occupied a corner of what had been Times Mirror Square and is now just a half-block away or, as a hard drinker once put it, “just a stagger past Broadway.”

Where other waitresses have come and gone, Alice has endured, never wavering from a style of service that characterizes her not so much as aloof but efficient. When a man wants a drink, he wants it in a straight line directly from the bar to the table without side trips by the server on whose tray it rests.

Alice sees to it. She is, without doubt, the undisputed queen of newspaper bars.

The 17th of 20 children, the girl from Coon Rapids, Iowa, tired of small towns, and hard winters, came to L.A. in 1945, lured west by the weather.

“I left in a blizzard, and it was 84 degrees here when I arrived,” she says, sitting at a kitchen table in her small Echo Park home. “It was January, and flowers were blooming. How could I not like it?”

She lives not 20 minutes from the Red Dog in a wood frame house that reflects her own tidy nature. Nothing is out of place. The windows shine. Dust would not dare cling to her carpet.

At 82, she limits her work week to three days but is not likely to retire any time soon. Her mother lived until she was 109, and Alice will probably do the same, hauling drinks and food to their destinations in a calm and orderly manner as the years fold one into the other.

“The worst thing you can do,” she says pragmatically, “is to do nothing.”

A secret of her endurance rests in the precise and functional style of her service. She remains tranquil by ignoring those who holler for attention, getting to them in her own good time. And when she does reach the table, she spares her customers wasteful chitchat in a room full of thirsty patrons. You name it, she gets it.

One reporter recalls just how efficient she was. Years ago, he worked in an office just above the bar. At night, ready to leave, he’d stomp three times on the floor. When he walked into the place a few moments later, Alice would have his drink ready.

Those who have frequented the Red Dog over the years range from crooks to cognoscenti. Mickey Cohen drank there, tipping everyone in sight, and so did Benjamin (Never Call Him Bugsy) Siegel. Writers, actors, judges, lawyers, politicians, boxing promoters and racetrack touts have all called the place their home away from home. And Alice has always been there.

I stopped hanging out at the Red Dog when I began writing a column about 18 years ago. I just didn’t have time for long lunch hours or after-work pick-me-ups anymore.

“You used to drink Beefeater martinis, straight up, olive on the side,” Alice said as we reminisced about the days when bulldozing Bill Eaton owned the place. She was right. I’d walk in and a martini would be waiting at my booth like a happy puppy, without a word being said.

Eaton was a tough kid from Jersey with the temperament of a piranha. He’d toss you out with the same enthusiasm that he’d welcome you in. Give him a bad time about anything at all and you were in and out quicker than the bartender could sweeten your lemonade. The fight promoter Don King, with his bulk and his wild hair, was Eaton’s good friend, and so was the racetrack tout Sideways Sidney, who held secret conversations on a phone at the end of the bar.

Walter Winchell used to come by when he was in town. Burt Reynolds kissed Alice’s hand one late afternoon, “and I haven’t washed it since.” I interviewed the great LAPD detective John St. John in a corner booth night after night for the book “Jigsaw John.” One-eyed and stoic, he was later immortalized in a television series starring Jack Warden. I think Alice, a widow, was in love with him, but she never said. She never says much of anything.

Times change. They still drink martinis at the Red Dog, Alice says, but mostly they’re fruit-flavored. Hardly any reporter gets falling down drunk anymore. There aren’t too many fights, and Bill Eaton isn’t there to throw anyone out. Only Alice remains a link to an era long gone. As I said, I don’t go by much anymore. But I know when I do, she’ll bring me a Beefeater martini, straight up, olive on the side. I won’t have to say a word.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.