So 2 years after opening the restaurant...

[boracayjohnny]

All Mels Drive-In Locations | West Hollywood | Lombard Street | Hollywood

The wife and I like this place. The location we like is in Sherman Oaks and on the busy Ventura Blvd with plenty of traffic. Mel's is modeled after a 50s diner. There's even a juke box. My favorite meal is the open faced roast beast sammich. It's just plain, simple and good. They fix it the exact same way each time. No experimenting, no fancy garnish, and served by a friendly waiter/waitress. What's not to like.

[yell01]

Originally Posted by OddBall

From the pictures, that is a gorgeous place. From the window pics, it looks like the location is in a shopping center so traffic volume and parking won't be an issue.
I managed a couple of pizza-n-sub joints back in the day working for money to get me through school. Learned a lot from a couple of old Greek brothers. They really knew the virtues of working hard, working smart, and the value of a customer.

Didn't want to quote the whole thing, LOL. But the couple that bought the diner shouldn't have changed what worked. I hear so many stories of people buying successful places and changing food quality or completely redoing the interior. There are reasons the place was successful and people liked going there. I've "tweaked" things but haven't made major changes except the patio and the food quality is the same.

The new place is in a shopping center out lot. 76 parking spaces with hundreds more right across the drive. Best Buy is the anchor and there is also a a ton of other shopping on all corners...

[simpleman68]

Originally Posted by DAB

Making money selling food is not easy.

Congrats.

Depends on who you're selling to.
Scott

[simpleman68]

Congrats Frank!!
I'm going to get there one of these days. Totally forgot to stop in a few weeks ago when I had dinner with my cousin probably less than 15 minutes away.

That's a really big commitment and a lot of long hours but the rewards can be huge as you've seen.
Genuinely excited for you man.
Scott

[yell01]

Originally Posted by simpleman68

Congrats Frank!!
I'm going to get there one of these days. Totally forgot to stop in a few weeks ago when I had dinner with my cousin probably less than 15 minutes away.

That's a really big commitment and a lot of long hours but the rewards can be huge as you've seen.
Genuinely excited for you man.
Scott

I have a lot of people saying to me "it's really hard right?" to which I reply "not really". I run it like a business and have good people working for me and I stay on top of it daily. Let me know Scott when you're up. It would be great to meet up.

[Z06David]

Nice looking place!! Glad to see it doing well!

[simpleman68]

Originally Posted by yell01

I have a lot of people saying to me "it's really hard right?" to which I reply "not really". I run it like a business and have good people working for me and I stay on top of it daily. Let me know Scott when you're up. It would be great to meet up.

Excellent to have nice people but when the cat is away the mice WILL play.
Spent a decade in restaurant management and took a few chains from the brink of going under to $1M + stores. Great people is mandatory for it to work.

Would be great to meet for a few cold ones sometime. I know Craig talked about putting a trip together at some point.

Scott