Louie Linguini
Mar. 15th, 2004 07:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera
While I was gone, the restaurant over my store re-opened. Used to be called Clawdaddy’s. Now it’s Louie Linguini’s. The menu is mostly fried fish but not local fish. This fish is trucked in from San Jose. San Jose is not exactly famous for its seafood.
Wayne, the owner, plundered the collection heretofore housed in his mega-successful tourist trap After The Quake so that now the faux-New Orleans balcony overlooking Cannery Row is wall-to-wall life-sized fiberglass images of Bruce Lee, Humphrey Bogart, Mae West and assorted highway patrolmen. The glass eyes make them look like giant voodoo dolls. Eye-catching? You bet. Plus there’s this constant stream of sixties rock ‘n’ roll – ooowah, oowah, oowah, Kitty; tell us about the boy from New York City – blasting from a state-of-the-art sound system, that’s in direct defiance of the clause that in my lease at least prohibits objectionable noises and loud music volumes.
Wayne was in a big rush to open the place by the beginning of March. I can understand why. I’m sure the Cannery Row Company floated him some kind of free rent deal for the first few months but sooner or later, that meter’s gonna start ticking plus there are all the other expenses, labor, remodeling, bulrushes for the Tiki Room design motif. Thank God they’re doing the food thing on the cheap.
Why Tiki Room? What does that have to do with the eponymous Louie Linguini whose fictional life-story is the centerpiece of every menu (who needs food?), whose bald, raccoon-eyed countenance is emblazoned across all the restaurant’s voluminous marketing materials? The Tiki Room is a big mystery. Maybe Wayne’s father, the famous alcoholic newspaper columnist, dragged Wayne to the basement of the Fairmont hotel at an impressionable age. Or maybe Wayne read too much Somerset Maugham as a child. Although it’s difficult (A) to imagine Wayne reading anything or (B) to envision Wayne at any developmental phase but ferret-faced middle age.
On Friday Wayne sent one of his minions into my store. Red-haired, early twenties, synthetic gorgeous. "I’m Kirsten, the marketing manager," she said.
"Of course, you are," I smiled and took her hand.
"So," she said, not beating around the bush. "Do people come in here and ask you for dining recommendations?"
"All the time," I said. And this is true.
"Have you eaten at Louie Linguini’s yet?"
"I’m waiting for an invitation."
She sighed and began rummaging around in her purse. "I know I have some gift certificates somewhere."
I could be bought off with $25, she figured.
After The Quake is monstrously successful with a very simple business model – take three thousand items emblazoned Monterey and mark them up 300%. I suppose I should be studying and learning.
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WTF?
Date: 2004-03-15 09:18 am (UTC)Re: WTF?
Date: 2004-03-15 11:31 am (UTC)Re: WTF?
Date: 2004-03-15 11:37 am (UTC)