L.A.'S Wildest Cafeteria Served Utopian Fantasy with a Side of Enchiladas (2014) | Hacker News Reader

L.A.'S Wildest Cafeteria Served Utopian Fantasy with a Side of Enchiladas (2014)

collectorsweekly.com

46 pointssamclemens15 comments

I been there. I once ended up there on a Saturday night and it was a night club with people dressed up straight out of the roaring 20's. Apparently it turns into a club at night. If you get the change it is worth checking out. If you are in the area walk over the "The Last Bookstore", also worth a look.

It's only a club now, as far as I'm aware. I went there once when it was actually a cafeteria and it was...pretty gross.

Nope, there is 100% still a cafeteria. They renovated a few years ago, restored the exhibits, and it’s now pretty nice again. The food’s good (like, throwback cafeteria food good, not “good” good. Get the meatloaf.) There’s also a tiki bar on the top floor. Unfortunately in an annoying LA trend the door to the tiki bar is hidden behind a mirror.

It was possibly overflow from the Edison which is a separate club in downtown LA. Cliftons is Cliftons

I ate at Cliftons some years ago, before the remodeling. It was pretty cool but also pretty worn out. Standard cafeteria fare, nothing really exciting. Mostly it was about the ambience. Some of the interior decoration (i.e. the fake animals and natural settings) looked like it had inspired Disneyland's designers.

That was an interesting article.

I don't know much about life in LA. Is downtown still a no-go?

Also it looks like the Clifton's website was hacked and filled with Thai blog posts? https://cliftonscafeteria.com/

Downtown is booming:

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/business/revitalization-p...

- https://urbanize.la/post/la-urbanized-sparks-downtown-la%E2%...

Downtown is fine.

Here's the website: https://www.cliftonsla.com/

Well that's bizarre! I got that other URL from the article and it contains some info. Maybe its just old.

Anyway, thanks.

We moved from SF to DTLA 2.5 years ago. I never been before, but even within the last 2.5 years it improved significantly. A lot of new apartment buildings were built and a lot more are under construction, pushing rents down significantly. We went down by 50% on our rent between SF/LA and now we went down by additional 35% within last year and it doesn't seem to be stopping. A lot of the building are still quite empty and doing everything to attract tenants.

The inflow of new people is also bringing new restaurants and other places. DTLA is quite enjoyable these days.

DTLA is drastically improved from 20 or even 10 years ago

The predecessor to Rainforest Cafe?

Thanks for reminding me of awesome times as a kid at rainforest cafe!

Same here! What a fun place back in the day.

I remember eating at a Cliftons in Lakewood as a kid before it closed in 2001

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