We had just finished a morning of La Brea Tar Pits and it was time for lunch. We thought about driving into West Hollywood or the updated Farmer's Market on Fairfax and have a "nice" lunch. We had parked the car on Wilshire (easy street parking in this area) and heading back we walked by a restaurant called CALLENDERS that looked very nice and upscale. We ditched our more elegant plans and thought we can enjoy a nice lunch on the Miracle Mile.
It didn't hit me that the name CALLENDER'S was actually an upscale Marie Callender's. Not only was the Marie name dropped, but it was far from the average strip mall Marie Callender's. It was an elegant brick building with a lovely patio out front.
We went in and found it dark and clubby with a lot of dark wood, glass and brass.
The hostess stand directed us to the back for seating. We walked through the restaurant and found it almost empty at noon (a very bad sign). We walked along a full bar, that seemed well stock, but void of bartender or patrons. We found the hostess stand and nobody was manning it. We waited, we waited and we waited. Finally, I went to the counter where a woman was boxing pies and asked if anyone is seating people. She glared at us and said she was also the hostess and grumbled all the way to our table that she had to do too many things and they didn't have enough help. (A nice welcome!)
We then had to wait for a waiter. Finally, a very cute Hollywood actor wannabe-type with a big smile got to our table. He was so cute that it was hard to be angry. He took our order and was great to the kids.
The menu was exactly like the Marie Callender's we have down the street at home, except the prices have been jacked up a bit for the more fancy decor. You get the same dry corn bread. I checked out the salad bar and it looked wilted and hardly fresh. The kids had burgers and we had salads off the menu. The food was okay, but nothing special. It was a Marie Callender’s and nothing more. The one good thing about it are the yummy pies, that are their trademark.
It looked to me like an attempt to upscale Marie Callender’s, but the attempt was failing miserably. There was a baby grand piano with no body playing, about one tenth of the tables had people sitting in them, the wait staff was always hard to find and busy, it indeed seemed understaffed. My grandfather had an expression that seemed to fit Callenders: "You can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig." They may call this place Callender's, but it's still Marie Callender's.