While searching Yelp! for vintage clothing stores in the area, I spotted a link to Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop in the right column. When I noticed the address, I couldn’t believe it. I’d been living within walking distance of downtown Culver City for over a year and I never saw nor heard of the place. A mom-and-pop coffee shop and diner by my apartment? That’s paramount. Real-estate gurus say Location, Location, Location; I hear Located near a taco stand, liquor store and cheap diner. Finally, I’d satisfied all three.

I fell in love with the place at first dine – actually, at first sight. Tucked into an alleyway between increasingly gentrified Main St. and a parking structure, Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop is practically a secret, a speakeasy for modern West LA where the hash house has long been chased out of town. Living paycheck-to-paycheck during my West Angeleno years, I made sure to find every survivor of the affordable diner species and when I found Tokyo 7-7, my search came to an end. I’d found what I wanted.

I romanticize diners. Somewhere between Hopper’s 1942 Nighthawks at the Diner and Tom Waits’s 1975 jazz album by the same name hides the secret to American counter culture, the stateside equivalent to sushi bars, ramen houses and all of the elevated meaning that James has deservedly celebrated in discussions of Itami’s Tampopo. Hash houses, truck stops and coffee counters are the main entrees of this land’s food culture.

That Tokyo 7-7 slinks into the corner of an alley, invisible to Culver City’s pedestrian traffic, further ingratiates the place to me. It’s like a setting for a film scene and if you’re a film buff, you know that diners off the beaten path are where it all goes down. Murderous adultery in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Prelude to murder in Hemingway’s The Killers. Unlucky detectives tilting back fedora brim to make witty chatter with the older blond behind the counter. The history of diners in American Cinema should be a book (and I want to write it).

However, as you can tell by its name, Tokyo 7-7 is not your average American hash house. While I’m sure that the waitresses have the razor sharp wits to stand toe-to-toe with every wisecracking film noir copper, I’m afraid I’ll never have the pleasure, because I don’t speak Japanese. While I have heard them chatter up a storm with the older Japanese regulars, I’m more used to their Zen-like service: quick nods, smiles, hurried bows and the occasional laugh at themselves for fumbling with the water pitcher. They are the coffee shop’s real charm, ranging from over-the-hill to venerable-elder, managing bustling crowds despite their tiny frames and playing the role of every child’s grandmother.

Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop is not a forties-film diner, but – despite being a Japanese ex-pat hangout that serves Yakisoba and Udon – it’s still an American staple. The owner’s twists on usual Americana (soy sauce on the tables, clippings about Japanese ballplayers on the walls and a wood paneled interior) only add to the charm of a greasy spoon with chili sizes, pancakes and tuna melts on the menu. Besides, in LA, ethnic remixes of American breakfast joints have become as classic as Howard Johnson.

As you can’t tell by its name, Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop is only open until two in the afternoon and closed on Sundays. When I didn’t work nearby, Saturdays were the only time I could eat there and Tokyo quickly became a tradition for Saturday hangovers: fried eggs with ninety-cent coffee and a three dollar Asahi beer. When I got a job in walking distance, I couldn’t resist spending my lunch hours at Tokyo’s counter, where meals took less than fifteen minutes and cost less than five dollars with tip. In time, I earned my title as a regular and tried everything on the menu, rotating daily from hamburgers or french toast to ginger beef on rice or Portuguese sausage royales. While the food was never amazing, it was always cheap and satisfying – the ends that justify every diner’s means.

There are highlights; the Club Sandwich, the Fish and Chips and the Tokyo 7-7 Special (Sunomono, Tamagoyaki, Chashu and rice served with Miso Soup and spicy mustard) cost a bit more than the rest of the fare but – I believe – are worth the extra dollar. The Japanese specialties aren’t as good as most Japanese restaurants, but for a third of the price, they aren’t bad. Okay, so there aren’t any culinary masterpieces on the laminated menu. It’s diner food and that’s what you pay for – decent grub, friendly service and a comfortable place to hang out. For the convenienced local, that goes a long way.

For me, Tokyo 7-7 goes a lot further. There is honesty in a restaurant that doesn’t try to be more than it is. The history of American diners isn’t a culture of red booths and checkered skirts; diners are functional things, like gas stations, places to grab a quick bite and read the paper in the middle of a busy day. There is a Zen to something that has a singular purpose and does it well. That’s how I feel about Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop. It isn’t an American diner with a Japanese twist. It’s an American diner that is also for Japanese-Americans, a place where two kinds of clientèle can spend an hour of the morning, a place where there’s a little Tampopo in a Denver Omelet.

Tokyo 7-7 Coffee Shop
3839 Main St Ste B
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 204-5728

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 1:47 am and is filed under Los Angeles.