Overheard at the Alcove

An Introduction of sorts

A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, on the patio of the Alcove, I was trying to prevent Lily, Michael’s Bedlington Terrier, from noticing the dog at the very adjacent next table. This was possible only because a) the dog was sitting in a woman’s lap and b) it was wearing one of those huge cone-shaped plastic things from the vet that somehow always make dogs look like they have just dropped in from outer space. Anyway, this cone was not only bigger than the dog’s head, but possibly larger than the dog itself.

While Lily remained oblivious, I could not restrain myself from listening in on the conversation of the four thin, attractive twenty-something women who sat picking at their impossibly large brunch platters.

“Are you having a Tofurkey for Thanksgiving?” one of them asked.
“What exactly is a Tofurkey,” another interjected, “Do they, like, take the tofu and then mold it into a turkey shape?”
“Basically,” the one with the dog replied.

An energetic discussion of the virtues of veganism ensued, culminating eventually in this entertaining, if possibly apocryphal, anecdote,

“When I was in Paris with my father last year,” the one with the dog began, “I was starting to feel guilty rejecting so many cute little restaurants because they had nothing vegan, or even vegetarian on the menus. I mean nothing. The European’s just don’t get it,” she sighed. “They don’t get it. I tried telling everyone to go to dinner without me, but of course they wouldn’t. Then one afternoon, we saw the cutest little restaurant. It was between lunch and dinner, so of course it was closed, but the chef just happened to be sitting at a little outside table, so I decided to ask him if he could make a vegetarian meal if we booked for dinner. Well he just didn’t get it. The more I tried to explain, he got so mad, he turned red. Then, he actually chased me down the street, waving his arms and screaming ‘viande, viande!’ ”

This is not even the most amusing conversation we’ve overheard during our frequent visits to the Alcove, a neighborhood cafe frequented by Los Feliz hipsters, and a surprisingly large number of screenwriters and actors, both accomplished and aspiring. In that regard, there is something quintessentially ‘Hollywood’ about it, and why I’ve decided to call this journal of musings about life in Los Angeles Overheard at the Alcove.

Alcove Cafe & Bakery
1929 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027-2711
(323) 644-0100