|
The
Sunset Grill is a Place to Sing About What’s
a poor tourist to do when it come to Hollywood restaurant-hopping these
days? The
Brown Derby has long since vanished into history. Ma Maison is gone, at
least temporarily. But
another hot sport has stepped in as the new place to grab a mean and
peek past the ketchup bottle for stars…down at the Sunset Grill. No need
to worry about competing with high-powered producers and winsome
starlets for reservations, though. Your clout is as good as anyone
else’s at the mom-and-pop burger stand that even its owner, Joe
Frolich, describes as a “hole in the wall”—a place where
celebrities and street people share the same stools. The
Sunset Grill hardly seems the stuff of legend, with its meager capacity
of under two dozen and its close-up, street side view of Sunset
Boulevard’s basket people and working girls. But ever since frequent
customer Don Henley saw fit to immortalize it in “Sunset Grill,” one
of the past year’s most popular rock songs, the Grill located at 7439
Sunset Blvd. has become ver y in. “When
they see the place, a lot of people are kind of disappointed, you
know?” said songwriter Henley, chuckling. “I guess they’re
expecting more of a nicer thing with some neon. I took Pino Palladino by
there and he took one look at the place and said, ‘All those chords
just for that?” Palladino
isn’t the only one to wonder how such a humble place could inspire
such a grand song. It’s also a mystery to Joe Frolich, the “old man
from the Old World” described in the song’s first verse. Frolich,
who was born in Vienna and came to Hollywood to take over the operation
of the grill 1957, refused to believe it when customers first started
telling him that he and his restaurant were being sung about on the
radio. “I
was surprised because we had no contact with Don Henley,” recalled the
heavily accented Frolich, closing up after a typical 11-hour day of
flipping burgers. “I didn’t know Don Henley’s name before. I
personally am not into rock. My wife and I are conservative and we like
classical music.” Joe’s
wife, Eva, finally recognized Henley at the Grill one day well after the
song had been released as part of his “Building the Perfect Beast”
album. By that time, tourists have already started gawking and taking
snapshots. Rolls-Royces were beginning to pull up alongside beat-up
Chevys. Most
confusingly to Joe, first-time customers were apt to ask for a beer (the
song’s last verse made a reference to ordering one there) when in fact
all that’s available are 18 varieties of soft drinks. But
most of the song—which was a recent Top 30 single—is true. Henley
sings, “These days a man makes you something, and you never see his
face/But there is no hiding place/Down at the Sunset Grill.” And sure
enough, the grill itself is within a few yards of the sidewalk, and
it’s an open one—the kind that can’t be built anymore due to
recent ordinances. Joe can be clearly seen from the street, hard at work
all day—one of Hollywood’s only truly dependable stars. Like
the Sunset Grill itself, Henley is 38, and like Joe, he’s a non-native
who enjoys what California has to offer but has never quite gotten used
to it. A Texas émigré, the singer/songwriter found fame as a prominent
member of the best-selling Eagles, whose songs frequently described the
allure and alienation that the West Coast life style holds for
outsiders. “Sunset
Grill” is another classic in much the same vein, yet Henley insists
the song is an indictment not of Southern California, but of urban
sprawl and the changing nature of American cityscapes. “It’s
just the disappearance of a certain way of life and of doing business
and of people relating to each other on a one-to-one personal level,”
he said. “It’s about living in a world of corporations and
franchises. The small shopkeeper in the city is being put out of
business. “To me, Joe simply symbolizes one of the last outposts or vestiges of the mom-and-pop business operation…the family owned and operated business. And the really sad thing is that the generations of kids who were born in the past 10 or 20 years don’t know the difference. People accept Wendy’s. Last
year, the Sunset Grill was put up for ale and Joe—who had leased the
property since 1957—was faced with a choice: spend his savings and buy
it, or retire. Not working was never a consideration, and he knew that
starting a new business from scratch is younger person’s endeavor. So,
despite a 3-year-old knee injury that makes it hard for him to be on his
feet all day, Frolich sold his investment property to buy the lot. “I
didn’t buy it to make money, I just bought it so I could stay here,”
he said, emphatically. “I’ve been here 25 years and never a dog
day—always something going on. And I like it open, with the people. If
I opened a place like this now, I’d have to put up a little window and
that would make it entirely different. “I’m
so surprised—everybody makes a big deal when you say you’ve been 25
years here. Maybe we’re actually un-American, because the American way
is if you have one store, buy two, three, four, and sell it all, and
have nothing left. This way you don’t go for the big money, but it’s
much nicer. All my children have worked here. When I close up my store,
I’m closed.” Frolich
likes Henley’s song, but his attitude is also distinctly Old World
When it comes to all the attention it has brought him—like a phone
call the previous day from a disc jockey in New York. “They
were much nicer than any other station because they didn’t ask me
silly questions,” he explained, leaning against the Grill counter.
“But at the end I was so embarrassed. He tells me, “Enjoy your
fame!” “I
feel like a fool. Fame is for people who do something. I don’t
mind—you understand what I mean? But for doing nothing, it’s
ridiculous. I feel embarrassed when people talk about fame. Joe is interrupted, as if on cue by the appearance of two men, one holding a camera and the other dressed in a green bird suit. “Can we take your picture with our bird?” asks the more human of the pair, a representative of radio station KKBQ in Houston. “We came all the way form Houston to do this.” |