Author: Arielle Laub
The building, painted a nondescript beige, takes up an entire street corner. It is desolate, a monotonous façade which stealthily hides the wonders that lie within. A large marquee broadcasts the perpetual weekly special – Mariachi Chicken. Welcome to Pat and Lorraine’s Diner.
Pat and Lorraine’s has stood in this spot so long that its exact date of inception has been forgotten. When the current owner began working there as a cook in 1979, it had already been a well-established local business. An old black and white photo on the diner’s wall shows Eagle Rock as it was more than thirty years ago – sparse buildings, a train running through the middle of town, few people. It bares no resemblance to the Eagle Rock of today, and yet, there in the right hand corner of the photo, is Pat and Lorraine’s Diner, looking exactly as it does now.
The inside of the restaurant fits a perfect diner stereotype – lots of counter seating, knick knacks and weird photos crowding the walls, cheap formica tables pushed up against windows, cherry-print cotton curtains that harken back to the ’50s. The decor is the result of decades of accumulation. It is not a contrived, modern take on diner kitsch; Pat and Lorraine’s is the real deal. It is no wonder that it was chosen as the location for the infamous “tipping scene” in Reservoir Dogs.
As Eagle Rock has changed around it, Pat and Lorraine’s appears to have remained much the same.There is comfort in the knowledge that no major renovations will soon overturn this building which has become a landmark. Each table will continue to beckon new patrons, and regulars will continue to sit at their favorite spot at the counter.
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In the mornings, waitresses bustle around behind the large counter in the middle of the restaurant. They greet each patron with congenial smiles, and the invitation to “Sit wherever you’d like!” The waitresses converse with patrons with the familiarity and affection of a doting mother. They are the bearers of promising menus and pots of coffee. While the interior alludes to traditional diner, the menu offers an exciting take on typical diner fare, infused with the Latino culture which pervades Los Angeles.
The menu has standard diner items – omelets, eggs any way one can imagine them, french toast, and biscuits with gravy. But it also has things like huevos rancheros and breakfast burritos; one can easily substitute breakfast potatoes for a side of rice and beans. The majority of the staff at Pat and Lorraine’s is Hispanic, as is the owner, yet it was not their own cultural background which affected this change to a classic menu. Rather, it was the patrons’ affinity for such dishes which caused rice and beans and “mariachi chicken” to become permanent staples. This melding of cultures – classic American and classic Latino – makes Pat and Lorraine’s an embodiment of Los Angeles itself.
The portions of each dish – whether it be of Latin or American origin – are suitable for a football player fresh from a long practice. When first looking at the menu at Pat and Lorraine’s, one may be disconcerted by the thought of a $13 omelet. It is not until the largest omelet imaginable, accompanied by a massive plate of steaming breakfast potatoes and a huge fluffy biscuit, arrives at the table that customers realize they have in fact been undercharged. After ordering two eggs over easy, I received a plate of the three most picturesque eggs I have ever seen (and was only charged for what I ordered). This generosity characterizes Pat and Lorraine’s. The coffee never stops flowing, the food fights to stay on already massive plates, and smiles abound.
When I commented to the owner about my love of the breakfast potatoes, he invited me back into the kitchen to see how they were made. His pride in the quality of the food is apparent.
When asked what his favorite thing to cook was, he responded, “The omelets. When I make my omelets I do it with my heart.”
The owner’s openness and generosity is not limited to his food or his kitchen. When a frequent customer walked in the door, she was greeted excitedly with “Buenos días! Como “estás?” as if she were an old friend and not a patron. The waitresses rushed to hug her. It does not take much to be welcomed into the warmth of this diner.
The homey quality is apparent as soon as the waitress takes her customer’s order. But what the average patron does not see is the hardship that comes along with owning a restaurant. The owner, no longer a young man, wakes up between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. in order to have biscuits ready and coffee brewing by the time patrons begin arriving at 6:30 a.m. When I complemented the owner on his biscuits (in a desperate attempt to pry out of him the secret to their fluffiness) he responded, “I’ve been making biscuits for thirty years. But we have problems with the mix now. Now, everything – oil, flour, everything – is not like before. Everything is cheap … even the eggs.”
Yet, as the quality of the ingredients degrades, the food manages to remain delicious, beckoning back a steady stream of regulars. Many of these are Occidental students, who can often be found there in pajamas on Saturday mornings, hoping some good diner food will cure their hangover. At times, Occidental can feel like a bubble, removed from the community which surrounds it. But at Pat and Lorraine’s, students and locals alike return again and again to partake in good food and fresh coffee, to read the morning paper or recount the debauchery of the night before.
Pat and Lorraine’s serves as a local landmark and a reminder of Eagle Rock’s history. It represents the melding of Latino culture with Americana. It is a reminder that even the oldest of institutions can adapt to its environment and can be enhanced by new cultural influences. Most importantly, it serves as a reminder that ethnic variety does not diminish a place’s cultural identity. It simply means that everyone gets the choice between a side of rice and beans or a biscuit.
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