Cliftons Cafeteria

So I haven't been able to devote as much time as I would like to my blog lately, but hopefully I can make up for it in the coming weeks. But on with today's post!

This weekend I had the, er, pleasure (?) or visiting Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. We were there with some friends who were visiting from Austin, one of whom had gotten very specific instructions about Clifton's, "Here's the address. Don't look anything up about it, just go." Famous last words is what I say. Clifton's was like a crappier Luby's (who knew it got worse, right?). Amid the numerous fake gold jewelry shops and the homeless people wandering around downtown, you open the door to this unusual cafeteria. It's like something from a 1960's postcard with bizarre fake animal carcasses hanging on the wall and a waterfall running right through the center. There's all kinds of food here, but I can't really say any of it looked good. Even worse was the taste. It was like eating hospital food and frankly I still feel sick even thinking about it. I tried to play it safe getting the turkey and dressing with a dinner roll and mac n' cheese. The only thing I can speak nicely about is the cornbread stuffing, which was mediocre at best. The turkey was dry, the mac n' cheese overcooked and with too much cheese, and the dinner roll was the kind of bread that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth as you're chewing. I tried a bite of Griffin's pumpkin pie, which wasn't good either. Overall, a big poop sandwich - and it wasn't even cheap! My meal alone was $13. I can think of SO many better places to eat for under $13. This is not to even mention the homeless lady that approached our table telling us we were all wanted by the FBI. She then proceeded to eat what was left of Griffin's food while hovering over our table. The manager came over and asked her to leave, but we let her take the rest of the food we weren't going to eat in a box with her. It was overall a really terrible experience and one I never hope to relive! To be fair though, I was the only one who didn't enjoy it. The other three had pleasant things to say about this raunchy spot. Let's just say that there used to be 9 locations and now, not surprisingly, there is only 1.

http://www.cliftonscafeteria.com/home.html