Blog: Why I Love the Cafe Stella Wall

Well, 'love' may be too strong a word...but I do support it. I must admit that the first time I saw it in it's unplastered concrete block form I was, like most people, aghast. What were they thinking? Then I got wind of an emergency community meeting held by the SLNC to discuss how it could have slipped through the approval cracks. So I went by to check it out from a pedestrian perspective, learned that it was going to be a bar/lounge, not a retail shop, and I understood what the owner was going for.

In architecture school you spend 5 years pinning your designs up on walls and having everyone talk about them. The first thing you have to learn about that process is that if you are going to toss in your constructive criticism, you have to first try and understand what the other student's stated intentions are. If all you do is shout out "from where I sit, I don't like it" that doesn't really give them anything to go on to improve it.

There are a few commenters on a recent post on an la.curbed.com article that talk about it being 'our' city. I have a feeling that neither my opinion, nor the owner's, factors into their idea of who 'we' exactly are. There are many different types of restaurants and cafes on the commercial stretch of Sunset Blvd., from taco stands, to vegan cafes, to German wurst shops, to El Pollo Loco, and of course, more expensive venues like Cafe Stella. They all serve a target customer, sometimes, probably often, that customer patronizes many of them at different times. It would be a pretty boring world if they were all exactly the same. Part of what a restaurant sells, maybe even half or more of its value, is in its ambiance. Cafe Stella is, like it or not, an expensive intimate restaurant. I go there on special occasions. Sometimes I even walk. I've had great meals there and I've also had some of the worst french fries I have ever tasted, when it was clear that they needed to replace their fryer oil. I've also had a surly response from the chef when I tried to send back a Tarte Tatin that was dry and burnt on the bottom, to the point it tasted like cardboard. "That's the way it's prepared", the waitress said. But all that said, I am looking forward to the opening of the new bar, wall and all. In fact even more so because of the wall.

If I want to go out with friends for tex mex and a great margarita I'll go to El Conquistador (which by the way is behind a wall) or maybe Sunday brunch under a shady tree at Cliff's Edge (oh, another wall), or I might go for a single malt scotch at The Thirsty Crow (and try to avoid the glare of the street lights shining in through the venetian blinds on the mandated windows). But if I want a quiet, maybe romantic drink I will head to the new bar at Cafe Stella. I could spend the evening there, drink a bit too much, and walk home, making the streets safer for everyone by being out on the sidewalk at night (I said drink a bit too much, too much to drive, but not to much to be a bad neighbor by talking loudly). I will go there because I want to be with the person I want to be with, alone, but in public, maybe on a date. Just like I go there for dinner, it won't be to people watch, or meet a big group of friends, but for a relaxing night out. I don't want to do that out on the sidewalk on Sunset Blvd.

I think this venue will add to the neighborhood. I hope it will become a neighborhood institution, like the restaurant. I hope that people walk there so they don't drink and drive. I hope the people who can't see beyond the wall, might actually see that rather than walling off the neighborhood, the wall creates a little intimate public/private space for the neighborhood. I hope that they see that just because they can't see inside as they walk by, they might see that the glimpse they get from the street through the door or the gate, actually entices them in to check it out.

I hope they see that just because it isn't what they would want it to be, doesn't mean it can't be an asset for what the owner (the actual owner who spent his money on developing it and much of the corner) wants it to be. He took away a triangular patch of free concrete from the corner, but he's offering you an intimate little space to relax and have a drink instead, for a nominal price. For every person who visited the fromer store in a day, there will probably be ten times more that visit the bar on any given night.

I look at the corner as a whole, from the Conservatory of Music, to Intelligentsia, The Cheese Shop, the flower shop, and Cafe Stella. No other commercial establishment in that area offers as much outside space for everyone to enjoy for the price of a(n overpriced) coffee. Taken as a whole it has more modulation of architecture and space than any other shop on that street. The new walled patio provides even more space for people to actually use.

I have always thought of LA as a city where you pick and choose the parts and pieces that make up your version of LA. You move around as you grow older, but some parts still stick with you. Different cultures live next door to each other and inhabit different overlapping cities in the same neighborhood. If we're going to believe that the city belongs to all of us, then we each have to accept that we're not going to end up liking all of it. Maybe not all of it is for us. But maybe we can also learn to appreciate more of its variety if we are open to trying.