Millies Phonies

I spent the better part of the nineties stuck in the mud of Burbank. Fortunately, in the spring of 1996, I had a girlfriend who managed an apartment building high in the hills of Silver Lake. She was a writer/actress/singer, who loved musical theater and grew up in Orange County. We met because I was teaching mime at the private school where she worked at as a teacher’s aide. We both loved the idea that we could see the Hollywood sign from the roof of her building. Neither one of us was very hip.

Most weeks I would spend Saturday nights at her place. On Sunday mornings, we would walk down the hill to Supreme Donut for our muffin breakfast. On our way there, we would always see a large group of hip-looking people standing on the sidewalk, waiting to eat at a small diner on Sunset Boulevard. All we could tell about the place is that it looked pretty funky and that it was called Millie’s.

Every Sunday, as we would pass by, we make disparaging comments about the kind of people who ate at Millie’s. I guess that’s what people do when they feel uninvited to the party. Sometimes we’d make vague plans to eat there, just for the experience. After all, we were both writers. But it never happened. We broke up after a few months, so I figured I’d never eat at Millie’s and I let it go at that.

In 1998 I hooked up with a much hipper girlfriend and moved to Echo Park. I loved the idea that I could see the Hollywood sign from our apartment. On Sundays, my new girlfriend and I would take leisurely walks down Sunset. One gray afternoon while on our way towards the Sunset Junction in Silver Lake, we noticed that Millie’s was pretty quiet. On a whim, we decided to grab a bite. We sat outdoors and drank too much coffee. We liked the funky atmosphere and the food was surprisingly good. We were hooked.

Every Sunday found us standing in line outside of Millie’s. I was now one of the people I used to make disparaging comments about. That is not to say I felt like I was a part of the scene. I’m not in a rock band and I used to live in Burbank, so I already had two strikes against me. But, I had a shaved head, and my girlfriend was a hairdresser with weird hair, so we fit in well enough. As I became a regular customer, I’d go in by myself and sit at the counter. I felt connected. Not hip. Just connected.

My best friend is hip. At the time he lived in Silver Lake and was the lead singer of the rock band Kittens for Christian. I just assumed he dug Millie’s. Surprisingly he didn’t. He thought it was pretentious, and his girlfriend didn’t like the food or the service. It’s true the service can be a little gruff, but I’ve always liked the food. I was baffled by their reaction until they told me a very important detail that I had overlooked. On the menu it states a “No Phones” policy. I had never noticed this before, but even if had, I would have assumed it meant that there are no public phones in the restaurant. Wrong. “No Phones” meant no cell phones.

“What?” I exclaimed.

“They don’t let you use cell phones at Millie’s,” he answered.

“That’s totally lame.”

At the time, I didn’t have a cell phone, and to this day I think it’s rude when people use cell phones in restaurants. Still, the idea of telling people that they can’t use a cell phone in a little greasy spoon was way too much for me to stomach. I guess the Millie’s crowd must think people who use cell phones are pretentious. But for me, not letting people talk on cell phones is pretentious. Who the hell did they think they were? I couldn’t believe it. My friend had completely shattered my image of Millie’s.

I didn’t eat there for months. And whenever I got the chance, I’d ask people if they knew about Millie’s “No Phones” policy, and then rant about it to anybody who would listen. It took me about six months to cool down.

One beautiful Saturday morning in early spring, I walked alone from my apartment in Echo Park down Sunset to give Millie’s a second chance. The fresh air gave me a spring in my step and a lightness of sprit. Maybe I had been too judgmental about Millie’s. I sat at the counter and flipped through an L.A. Weekly as I sipped my second cup of coffee. I almost felt connected again. “Every place has its faults,” I thought to myself. I still hadn’t placed my order when the waitress/cook/owner turned to me and asked, “Hey, do you want a burrito? We made it with cheese by mistake. If you don’t want it we’re going to throw it away.”

“Sure,” I said.

There I was back at Millie’s sitting at the counter feeling connected and getting a chance to bail them out. And I was sure I was going to get a break on my bill. Maybe I’d just have to pay for my coffee. Of course I was stunned when the bill came there was no discount. I mean nothing. Not even my coffee. I was pissed, but I didn’t want to make a scene. So instead I left seething and spent the next six months ranting about it to anyone within earshot. My hairdresser girlfriend and I eventually moved to North Hollywood before breaking up a few years later. I didn’t eat again at Millie’s for years.

The other day I was out with an intimate stranger I had met on craigslist. She lives in Long Beach and thinks the east side is cool, so I was taking her on a tour of my old stomping grounds. We were driving around looking for a place to eat. On a whim, I suggested Millie’s. I almost had to since it’s a Silver Lake landmark, which basically means the cool rich kids from the west side have already been there and done that.

We sat outside in the late afternoon sun and drank good coffee. While we were looking at the menu I told her about the old “no phones” policy. I took a quick glance at the new and improved menu and didn’t see any mention of it. Then my new friend noticed the words “No Phones” in tiny type on the front of the menu. I laughed. All the anger had passed. In fact, I was now imbedded in the cell phone world, so to be honest, I kind of liked the idea of a sanctuary from cell phones.

Our food was delicious and everything seemed to be healed. Until I saw a guy sitting across from us, talking on his cell phone. He was blatantly breaking the Millie’s “No Phones” policy. I waited for someone to say or do something to get the guy to stop talking on his phone. But no one said a thing.

I couldn’t believe it. For years I resented their pretentious “No Phones policy. Now finally, after many years, I was in sync with their position, but now no one at Millie’s cared enough to enforce it. Which just confirmed something I always knew: I was never really apart of the Millie’s scene–which in the end is cool with me.