Lemonade: the cafeteria, re-imagined
Lemonade, at Manhattan Beach’s Metlox Plaza. Photo by Randy Berler There’s a sign I have seen in stores selling handcrafted or custom-made goods that encapsulates one of the sorry truths of the universe. It reads, “Fast, cheap, and good: Pick any two.” With rare exceptions, that rule holds at restaurants – consider any good restaurant and there is always someplace you can get a meal that is faster, cheaper, and worse. One of the rare places that scores well on all three metrics is Lemonade, a new restaurant in the Metlox development in Manhattan Beach. They’re part of a quickly-expanding chain that is trying to introduce the idea of stylish and healthy dining, cafeteria style. There is an historical precedent in this; when cafeterias first became a fad in Los Angeles in the early 1900s, they were seen as a healthful alternative to the sketchy roadside food stalls where office workers could get a quick bite. Clifton’s, which was established in 1931, still survives in downtown L.A., a relic of the first wave of “choose and dine” restaurants. Lemonade is recognizably the heir to those establishments, with customers sliding their plastic trays down the rail and being served on paper…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com