Joel Grover's revenge
I'm talking, of course, about the KNBC "investigative" reporter who seems to investigate just one thing: Dirty restaurants. (Hey, I'm all for shining a spotlight on gross kitchens, but there are other bad things going on around town.)
Grover's reports led to the now-standard letter grades at each restaurant, as well as a stepped-up inspecting process by the health department. The L.A. Times also prints each month a list of restaurants that were shut down because of some health code violation. A few expensive restaurants always make the list, in addition to the usual roach coach dives.
Last September, Caffe Luna made the list.
Now, prior to that point, the Melrose restaurant was always one of those places you go to when you can't for the life of you think of a place to go. Open late, decent but not spectacular Italian grub and--perhaps most importantly--an outdoor patio to make up for the mediocre food.
So when KCRW threw its semi-annual beg-a-thon last August, I picked up a Caffe Luna gift certificate for my $50 pledge. Literally two days later, the L.A. Times had a nice big story on major restaurants that had been shut down due to health code violations-- and Caffe Luna led the list.
Nice.
I decided to give them some time to get their act together, and filed away the gift certificate. Until this weekend, when Maria and I headed to Melrose to finally cash in on my free Caffe Luna meal. Only Caffe Luna was nowhere to be found. Two restaurants had taken over the space. Turns out Caffe Luna never re-opened after its September shutdown.
Damn you, Joel Grover! You owe me a new KCRW premium!
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