Jones

No, not Indiana Jones, just plain ole' Jones.

Jones is an iconic little restaurant right down the street from mi casa. But its more than a little restaurant, it has a rock n' roll-ish vibe with a fun little lounge, checkered tablecloths, brick walls, intimate lighting and seating (for the most part), an elevated bar and lots of red vinyl lounge-y seating. And, for the smokers that feel alienated in this city, it holds one of the truly spank smoking rooms that I have ever seen, complete with great pieces of art, ceiling fans, cushy couches and of course, tons of smokers. Even the bathrooms have their own little "flair…" the walls are covered in Polaroid's of all sorts of, um, things, people, body parts, etc.

My background with Jones is less-than colorful. The first time I went there, a friend and I were in sweats, doing crappy home repair, grunt work around my house when it was suggested that we grab some food. I had never been to Jones. I was told it was a fun little place to "grab a bite." Its on a little desolate corner and to be fair, from the outside, it looks like a whole lotta-nothin'. Hear me out, DON'T ever go there in your sweats. This is NOT a Sizzler, but it IS a scene and sweats AIN'T that scene. I sat, huddled down, as I watchfully eyed the hipster-like peeps gallivanting throughout.

Anyway. I was very impressed with the food the first time I'd gone there. Its called an "Italian" restaurant (however, I don't particularly find their menu to be overly Italian.) Very interesting folks were working the bar and the servers were great, so it added to the cool ambience. There are old photos on the walls near the ceiling and a hell of a lot of mirrors (again, DON'T wear sweats). Each table is amply lit with a nice little candle and yummy bread with delish olive oil is brought at your wanting (the servers ASK you if you want carb-riddled bread, after all, it is Hollywood). Great old school rock music floods the air, but at a perfectly leveled loudness. If you are nosy like me, you could overhear many conversations about people and their "Hollywood" stuff. I felt a little awkward that time.

After that first gawky moment, I had dinner there with a friend that was visiting. Fun, but with a hair of pretension that was a little bit of a turn-off.

After that, the bar/smoking area became a great late night haunt for me and my local peeps. The entire place was always like a sardine can after 10. While I always had fun, I always felt this air of fakeness that I could not shake. There were definitely some cool people, but the crowd just felt stale and plastic. I stopped frequenting the place. I'd had enough.

About 5 months ago, I went to meet a group of friends there. Again, not quite sure how I felt about the atmosphere AND the music was way too loud. Now, I am not old, but hearing grating uber-cool 70's, early 80's rock is NOT a good digesting tool, mostly if its blaring on top of loud customers. The drinks were this big, heavy on the ice and low on everything else. The staff was fairly rude, if not distant at being helpful. We decided that evening to order a bunch of desserts. Ironically, in a place filled with living and breathing pencil people, I assumed their desserts would be lame. Quite the opposite. Every dessert that was ordered was better than the next…scrumptious, in fact and heaping in quantity. After having loaded ourselves with all sorts of confections, we hung out at the bar and again, the bartenders seemed completely disinterested in helping anyone, served us drinks that were expensive and made for Lilliputians, and seemed a lot more interested in the antics of each other than their jobs.

I swore off Jones…again.

This past Saturday, with many options for the evening, I decided to give Jones another go. Having it in walking distance to my house makes it worth trying again. And again. And sigh, yet again. I was a little leery. We arrived around 7. It was quite empty. The girl at the door was extremely nice, but warned us that the reservation people were going to start piling in, but we were welcome to a little table in the middle of the restaurant. It was a perfect people watching spot as well as, being in the middle of the action. I noted that the staff seemed…lighter, if not happier. Our server came to greet us and told us the specials and then a funny story about something that had happened earlier. I said I'd heard the books were flooded with reservations and she said, "Yes, its odd. The past few weekends, we've been slammed." She said this quite joyously. She brought us the bottle of wine we'd ordered with the tasty bread I'd mentioned earlier. It was a little empty in there, but had enough light chatter-buzz to keep things interesting. "I wanna be sedated" by the Ramones was lightly beaming through the speakers and it fit in perfectly. We had a chance to really look around the restaurant and breathe in ambience.

Slowly, people started filtering in, but the good vibe continued. Our food was amazingly good and the people watching slowly became more exciting. I overheard a woman at the next table saying, "Wow, this place feels good like it did 10 years ago." I was not sure what it had been like back then, but all I could think was, it was definitely not as "scene-y" as it had been before. The interesting conversations still buzzed about, the noise level still got higher as the night wore on, our drinks at the bar were actually DECENT and…

for once, I can't WAIT to go back! A great night was had by all...and the company I kept did not hurt either :)

Little factoid, apparently, Jones was burned to the ground in a fire back in 1998. It was re-built exactly the same.

Jones
7201 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, 90046
(323) 850-1727