Where you at...two and a half?

 


Where you at...two and a half?


     When Greg worked for the Athletic Club Flower shop he was sent to the nearby Pantry Cafe to have a hearty breakfast before beginning his rounds for Uncle Johnny Tassano. The boss would inform Greg or Kevin or both that they should show up at 7 am "having had." This meant you broke fast before starting work. The portions at the Pantry are legendarily huge and breakfast was no exception. If you ordered ham and eggs you were given a ham steak that covered the plate. Hot cakes were immense, stacked up beautifully and covered in rich creamery butter and syrup. Mannings coffee was hot and plentiful. These memories stretch back to the days of owner Dewey Logan when the Pantry had no key to the front door and never closed. Logan himself lived a few blocks up Figueroa and sometimes sat out on the veranda of his home and had a smoke. Legend was Logan hired ex-cons and gay men who needed work as waiters and they were trusted by this wise owner way ahead of his time. You saw the same faces when you visited the Pantry because they liked working there and  it showed. Long after his days at the flower shop Greg loved to re-visit the Pantry and any chance he had in downtown he stopped in for that big breakfast. Another quaint feature of Logan's Pantry was the communal table where single fellas might sit together without taking up a table for four in the rest of the place. You became a real part of Los Angeles when you sat at that groaning table and you also eavesdropped whether you liked it or not. So, Greg had stopped in early before one of his many jobs downtown and took a chair at the communal table. A couple of very rotund diners sat nearby and one asked the other about his battle with the demon obesity "where you at? Two and a half?  inquired the pal. The queried friend solemnly answered "three and a half."  At the same time Greg looked over at the guy's plate and saw about a half dozen fat pork link sausages, a generous helping of hashed browns, a short stack and several scrambled eggs waiting demolition by the gent pushing four bills. The Pantry changed hands when Dewey Logan cashed in his chips and ended up in the hands of Richard Riordan who feebly attempted to recreate the old-time ambiance but it is just not the same. Yet, the ghosts of two sated fat guys and a secretly smiling young Greg no doubt linger at the communal table.





Comments

  1. Kevin SmithSeptember 27, 2024 at 11:08 AM

    The only artificial flowers Johnny did were for the Pantry. Four times a year either Greg or I would take a “fresh” arrangement and retrieve the grease encrusted nightmare that had sat there for three months.

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