On my old website, I used to have a section called "Great Los Angeles Restaurants That Ain't There No More." It was all about great Los Angeles restaurants that ain't…well, you get the concept. I listed many, wrote about my experiences at them and featured visuals whenever I had visuals to feature.
That section ain't there no more…but fret not. It has been reborn as a new site, Old Los Angeles Restaurants (The Kind That Ain't There No More). This site is new and improved and I will be adding more and more old Los Angeles restaurants to it in the coming months. There are new listings and I've rewritten and added newly-acquired images to the old ones.
Unlike the old feature, this new website invites reader participation. The old feature drew some of the most hateful e-mails I've ever seen. When I post a political opinion here, as moderate and polite as I am in most of my views, I still get nasty messages from folks who are convinced that the world is doomed because the guy who writes Groo doesn't think Ron Paul is the savior of mankind. That's nothing compared to the mail you get if you write about old L.A. restaurants and omit (because you never went there or maybe even heard of it) the best local hamburger stand of the sixties. So from now on, I have a simple reply to those folks: If I didn't cover your favorite dining establishment, write up something and send it to me to post. We also invite comments and memories from those who remember the places I do write about.
If you didn't live in or around Los Angeles, this new site may be of zero interest to you. I'm not sure I'd care about a blog about old diners in Boise, Idaho. But if you still salivate at the mere mention of C.C. Brown's ice cream sundaes or Pizza Prince pizza…have I got a website for you!