Down and out and thirsty in North Hollywood

I felt like a cowboy in an old Western. I believe the word is “parched.” After a seven-hour drive from the Bay Area, we rolled into North Hollywood in the early evening. Being both hungry and thirsty, we pulled up to a little pho restaurant. Noodles and beer were in my immediate future, just like Obama and Bourdain — only they weren’t.

For some inexplicable reason, the restaurant didn’t serve any beer or wine. So, it wasn’t noodles and beer; it was going to be tacos and margaritas. When you’ve spent the better part of the day on “The 5,” as the locals down there call it, and it’s 90 degrees outside — regardless of the air conditioning — one gets powerfully thirsty.

The Mexican restaurant had no beer, wine or margaritas. So, no Mexican food either.

OK, what about Indian food and Kingfisher beer? Nope.

Japanese food with sake and Kirin? Nope.

Hamburgers and an IPA? Nope.

What’s going on here? I thought. A beer and wine license is only $1,300; why didn’t any of these restaurants have one? Everybody knows the profit is in alcohol and not food, don’t they?

In the restaurant business, food costs can run up to 60% depending on the quality, and labor can be as high as 30%, depending on the preparations’ intricacies, which leaves a meager 10% profit, not including electricity, rent, insurance, etc. It’s usually the booze that makes it all work, from a profit standpoint. Think of it this way: good liquor pour costs (the cost of the alcohol in a drink) are about 20%, labor is maybe 10% and add another 10% for miscellaneous stuff, all yielding a profit margin of nearly 60% on alcoholic drinks! When combined with the nearly 10% profit on the food, you come out with a much more respectable and doable number. But only if you have the booze!

Eventually we settled for some food minus the libations. I did, however, ask the proprietor about the licensing situation. He said it was a city restriction. They only wanted so many establishments that sold alcohol, which seemed puritanical considering that it was Hollywood. North Hollywood, to be sure, but still.

“Where can one get a drink around here?” I asked.

“There’s a bar in the strip mall over that away,” he said.

We wandered “that away” and ran across a bar in between. I wondered why the proprietor hadn’t mentioned it. We walked through the front door and sat at the gleaming black marble bar. It screamed hipster in every single way, from the shiny chrome down to the black cocktail napkins.

Sidling up to the bar, we sat down.

“Whiskey on the rocks,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the bartender, wearing what looked like a leather welding apron festooned with accessories: a thermometer, a mixing spoon, a pen and what looked like a glass straw. “We only serve the drinks that we have specially curated for our menu.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, really not understanding what he meant.

He repeated himself.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

He wasn’t.

“You have whiskey and you have ice, and you’re telling me that I can’t just get that?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Our drinks are specially curated to go with our food,” he said again.

“But we aren’t getting anything to eat,” I said, which apparently was another problem.

No food. No drinks. No wonder the other guy didn’t mention this place.

Our last hope was that one other bar on the other side of the strip mall, and it was beckoning to us like a distant oasis.

It was all Spanish tile and suburban stucco, just like everything else around it. More dentist office than bar. But it was open. And the neon sign out front said “Liquor,” so we felt pretty confident.

We entered through two glass swinging front doors, which were certainly more jewelry showroom than Old West saloon. Our eyes adjusted to the lighting change, and when they did, they widened. It was a topless bar.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

• We stopped by a Taco Bell on the way back to the Bay Area, and they served beer and wine. Go figure.

• Morality is always on a sliding scale.

• “One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation,” once said American politician and former Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed.

• We only stayed for one beer; I don’t care what my credit card statement says.

• Strip mall? Now I get it.