Seldom praised and often shunned, joints are the most misunder-stood of American restaurants. If they only had been labeled bistros, which they resemble in countless ways, they would be beloved.
Joints are ignored by foodies and critics and are treasured only by the people who regularly eat in them. Joints are creatures of neighborhoods, not restaurant guides. Those who dismiss them lose out on bare-knuckled food, good-hearted (if rarely good-natured) service, and a rambunctious ambiance impossible to capture in the pages of an architectural magazine. A joint brings joy to the heart. Depending on whether or not the cook is having a good day, heartburn is also a possibility.
Unquestionably, joints have sunk perilously close to the bottom of the restaurant caste system, so low that upon occasion they are misiden-tified as dumps. This is because the food lacks a certain . . . what’s the right word? . . . elegance. So much about dining today concerns appearances—the comely chef, the artful cuisine, the gleaming kitchen, the designer walls. A plate overflowing with a very large portion of very decent food is seldom admired. Still, the good joints quietly linger on, surviving every intimidating food trend, every urban renewal project that threatens to close them down. Were they more chichi, they’d be classified as cafés, and eager tourists would storm their doors.
I recently asked David Rockwell, the eminent restaurant designer, if he could express in technical terms the difference between a joint 3 0
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and a dump. He explained, “A dump is a place on the way down; it probably didn’t start out being a dump. A joint is and always has been a joint.”
A joint has no high concept. It just is. It is a safe haven in a culinary world that swirls with inconsistencies. It is a respite from fast food, small food, tall food, and fancy food. Nothing is flambéed in a joint—
except accidentally, should there be a grease fire. While the food in a joint is usually native-born American, the people who work in them are more likely to have been naturalized. English is always spoken, but not necessarily by the employee assigned the job of answering the telephone.
My two favorite joints are Big Nick’s in New York City and The Pantry in Los Angeles. What they both have that I particularly admire are (1) long hours: The Pantry never closes and Big Nick’s shuts down its pizza operation for an hour each day, and (2) one-pound hamburgers. Joints have a lot of leeway where menus are concerned, but a great hamburger is pretty much a prerequisite.
I paid a visit to Big Nick’s (technically, Big Nick’s Burger and Pizza Joint) on Broadway near Seventy-seventh Street recently, squeezing into a booth for four that would be tight for two, knowing that I would order the same food I always order. My only dilemma: Did I want to go for the small (quarter-pound), the medium (half-pound), or the Sumo (full-pound) burger? When I opted for the $6.50 Sumo, which is what the owner, Demetrios Nicholas Imirziades, calls his magnificent mound of freshly ground chuck and sirloin cooked on an indoor charcoal grill, the waitress looked skeptically at me.
“It’s big,” she said.
“Fine,” I replied.
“It’s big and gross,” she added.
“Just the way I like it,” I replied.
Grudgingly, she wrote down my order. As she turned, she looked back over her shoulder and said, “It’s big.” Undaunted, I replied, “Fine.”
I didn’t show it, but my feelings were hurt. The guy one table over F O R K I T O V E R
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had just ordered a Swiss cheese and onion omelette with hash browns, Italian sausage, and a Bud Light, and she hadn’t doubted his capabilities. Just to show her, I ate every bite. Well, almost every bite.
I have to confess that I haven’t been to The Pantry (technically, The Original Pantry Cafe), located at Ninth and Figueroa in downtown L.A.
in three or four years. I was a regular there in the seventies, when I was a much-traveled sportswriter. In recent years, after becoming a food writer, I started neglecting it in favor of lesser restaurants with better public relations departments.
The place has globe lights, heavy crockery, cheap flatware, and a dull patina. What I particularly love about The Pantry is the rumor that all the employees are ex-convicts, which I refuse to check out because I don’t want to find out it’s untrue. The last time I was there, a counter-man who served me a bowl of clam chowder while I was waiting for a friend to join me for lunch sure looked as though he’d received a par-don from the governor. He was an old guy with a buzz cut who never smiled.
“Doesn’t seem to like me,” I said to the big guy on the next stool.
“It started long before you got here,” he replied.
I telephoned a friend living in Los Angeles, a retired sportswriter named George Kiseda, who had introduced me to the place. I asked him to eat there and report back to me. He said he’d be happy to do so since he was obligated to take his brother and sister-in-law out to dinner, and this way he’d have to spend only seven dollars apiece on their meal.
When he got back to me, he said his brother, no denizen of joints, was astonished by the brusqueness of their waiter. Instead of chatting endlessly, as L.A. waiters usually do, this fellow was uncomfortably precise.
“What comes with this?” asked the brother, referring to the $6.65
hamburger steak meal. (I believe the absence of a bun is what makes this hamburger a steak in the opinion of management.)
“Vegetables,” was the reply.
“Do I have a choice?”
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“No.”
Kiseda then presented his comprehensive report: “I figured out why it’s a joint. No maître d’. No menu. No tablecloth. No chandeliers. No froufrou of any kind.
