A downtown believer in Los Angeles
Property developer is renovating the city, one cafe at a time
Huffing and puffing, Andrew Meieran burst into a fifthfloor LA office here in mid-July. He was running 20 minutes late. “I’m sorry; can you wait a few more minutes?” he asked me. “I just have to send one text.” Then an assistant and a chef both needed a minute. Then came a phone call.
“Just one more thing,” he said with a tortured squint. “Promise.”
Suddenly it was clear how the quiet Meieran — powerhouse real estate developer, nightlife impresario, aspiring movie producer — spent roughly US$14 million (500 million baht), or about $7 million more than he had intended, buying and renovating a cafeteria in this city’s still-gritty downtown. One more thing led to 200 more things.
Clifton’s Cafeteria, to reopen Sept 22 after four years of construction, will serve things like sliced turkey, orange jelly and baked macaroni in a street-level, woodland-themed (to put it mildly) dining hall, just as it did when it opened in 1935.
But Meieran added a few touches. The basement will be a speakeasy-style bar with decorations that include fossilised dinosaur eggs. He built a craft beer bar on the second floor, where a taxidermied lion stands watch. A fancier bar occupies the third floor; cocktails will be served from a Gothic altar from a Boston church. The fourth-floor offices are being turned into two more bars — one tiki themed, where “rain” will storm — and a steakhouse.
Oh, and he cut an atrium into the centre of the building and installed a three-story replica of a giant coastal redwood inside it. “Those branches are strong enough to hold aerial performers,” he said with a casual wave toward the tree. It must be asked: Is he insane?
“People may not know it, but they are starving for unique, original spaces,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to be part of a crowd. That’s mediocrity.” Having helped start downtown Los Angeles’ boom with the Edison, a sprawling subterranean nightclub, and the Golden Gopher, a retro-chic bar, Meieran, 48, now has his eye on the money that followed. Thousands of luxury condos are under construction. Hotels are moving in or expanding by the dozen. A Soho House is on the way. Eli and Edythe Broad’s $140 million art museum will open on Sept 20.
“Just a few years ago, it was dead here at night, but that has changed drastically,” said José Huizar, the City Council member who has pushed for redevelopment with an initiative called Bringing Back Broadway. “There’s going to be huge demand for the new Clifton’s.”
Not everyone is as gung-ho. Some Angelenos see the supersize complex as a symbol of overly aggressive gentrification. Meieran, who has bought and sold real estate since his days at the University of California, Berkeley, amassing a personal fortune (he has no partners in Clifton’s), is also facing down the forces of nostalgia. Imagine how New Yorkers would react if a developer added four alcohol-soaked levels to Katz’s Delicatessen.
“There are some militants,” he acknowledged. “But you can’t please everyone.”
To be fair, Clifton’s was never a normal cafeteria. Opened by Clifford Clinton, a morally minded restaurateur with a flair for the dramatic, the dining hall was always themed within an inch of its life.
Pillars became redwoods, replete with real bark and faux branches. A 6m waterfall cascaded over artificial rocks. An animatronic raccoon lived in a log. A woodland spring bubbled with limeade.
It was a smash hit. Clinton’s “forest oasis in the urban jungle,” as he described it, spawned a chain (now all gone but the flagship), worked its way into the cultural fabric of southern California and influenced the likes of Walt Disney, a onetime regular. Ray Bradbury, L. Ron Hubbard and architect Welton Becket were also fixtures.
“Everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, went to Clifton’s,” said actress June Lockhart, 90. Lockhart, best known for “Lassie” and “Lost in Space,” will cut the opening ribbon on the reimagined Clifton’s.
“I think Andrew is remarkable, he’s a detail man. He understands flash and showbiz, but when you meet him, he is the opposite. It’s kind of a hoot.”
Meieran would like to expand his yarn-spinning to cinemas. In 2007, he unveiled a production company, saying he had 10 movies in development with budgets of as much as $15 million. Nothing much became of anything until 2013, when he directed, produced and co-wrote “Highland Park,” a comedic drama. It was released on VOD.
Three films remain in the works, according to Meieran, who said his movie efforts shifted to a back burner as the Clifton’s project took on a life of its own. He said one movie would focus on Rod Serling, who created The Twilight Zone. Old Hollywood seems to be a particular fascination for him. In 2001, he bought a Beachwood Canyon mansion that had been home at various points to Charlie Chaplin and Mary Astor. After a meticulous restoration, he sold the estate, known as Moorcrest for $6.25 million last year.
Meieran grew up in San Francisco and studied rhetoric and architecture at Berkeley. But it was a side restoration project that truly fascinated him. Unable to get student housing, he said, his parents offered to rent him a condo.
“But I didn’t want that because I thought it was not inspiring,” he said. Instead, they bought a rundown 1907 Craftsman cottage, and he became fixated on refurbishing it.
His parents let him keep the profit when he sold the house, and he traded into bigger projects after graduation. In 1995, he bought the dilapidated Holy Cross Church in San Francisco for $1.1 million and turned it into lofts. Over the next decade, he moved to Los Angeles, where he has since bought and sold roughly 40 buildings, many in a gentrifying Koreatown. In partnerships he has also developed properties in Georgia, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois.
Meieran’s work has sometimes been contentious — a downtown project with entrepreneur Barry Shy turned acrimonious — but mostly he keeps a low profile.
“Andrew is a dedicated preservationist,” said Linda Dishman, the executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, who has known him for a decade. “He has this obsessive quality. I mean, he has spent years personally combing through eBay for things to decorate Clifton’s. Most people would have an assistant do that.”
Asked if “obsessive” was a fair description of his work with Clifton’s, Meieran smiled and squirmed a little. “Yes, I suppose,” he said. “But I’m not crazy!”