I think we found a glitch in the matrix. It's Urth Caffe, Santa Monica's iconic, line-out-the-door main street magic copied and pasted. But the mouse must have slipped and dropped it in the middle of an industrial dystopia that is the Lawndale/Hawthorne border.
Here it sits, serving up bowl-sized Cappuccinos and slinging sumptuous sweets, sandwiched between tile manufacturers and industrial kitchen outlets. Despite the no-traffic backstreet, the valet controls this tiny lot, and for the flat fee of five dollars, you can watch the valet drive your car into a spot ten feet over.
Despite all this, there is a reason they are in business - they know good, clean eating. They make a mean Pancake, firm but fluffy organic buttermilk with an almost-crispy griddled crust. It's white-people food, undoubtedly well done.
The Breakfast Burrito, however, is a whitewashed one to avoid. Quality ingredients; scrambled egg, bland black beans, and runny guac, bundled together in extreme sterility, like a burrito with the soul sucked out. And this "salsa" or whatever on the side is an abomination resembling a ketchup puree. A bad one.
I moved to Lawndale to seek shelter from Santa Monica snobbery, but I've always loved much of what Santa Monica offers in terms of quality food. Urth Caffe is just as good here, I think, but the location feels invasive, and the theme is positively bizarre. Maybe it won't last, but it's more likely a prequel of what's to come, giving us a gander at the early stages of gentrification. The truth is, I'd gladly come back to Urth Caffe sometime, but I just can't help thinking, "There goes the neighborhood".
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