The other day on 89.3 KPCC I heard about restaurants going under (examples given were Claim Jumper and Daphne’s Greek Cafe) because their owners remained complacent. My ears perked up at once.

Because this is true: over the past 2 years, we’ve noticed some local area restaurants cutting corners in the subtlest of ways. I don’t know what it is, but it started when we had a few poor experiences at Islands restaurant, from the poor service to the lackluster quality of food compared with what we were used to (even the fries tasted a bit different). That’s all right, we weren’t regulars with Islands, even though my husband was (he’d sometimes go there with coworkers for lunch), so cutting that restaurant out from our list of “places still worthwhile to splurge our hard earned dollars to eat at”. Same thing was LA Food Show. Once they got rid of the Bangers and Mash, then Dan Dan Noodles, we stopped going altogether.

Then we started noticing that our perennial favorite, Kettle restaurant, started changing menus around. Now, changes with the Kettle made us very unhappy, because we’ve been going there at least once or twice a month, sometimes more often, since 1998. When we had our baby, our friends even ordered takeout for us from the Kettle because they knew how much we liked it. First, they got rid of 2 items my husband’s eaten for years, the country fried steak breakfast and blackened sole sandwich. Sure, you can order them off the menu but it was an unsettling feeling.

Then recently my in laws came and we went there. This was the incident that put the nail in the coffin for us. We waited for 15 minutes and the waitress never came to take our order. It was during a weekday morning, and the restaurant was nowhere near packed. The people who sat down after us were served before we were. Now, I’m there with my in laws AND a 3 year old toddler with limited patience – being served quickly was what I expected considering how empty the place was! Finally I had to stand up and walk over to ask someone to take our order, the young man. He went to speak with our waitress (an elderly blond haired lady) who apparently delegated the task to him instead. Maybe she knew that if she did wait on us, she wasn’t going to get a tip; maybe she couldn’t handle more than 3 tables at once.

I got my regular – California Benedict, which was OK. The shoddy service ruined it for me, so the food didn’t taste as good. But my mother in law ordered biscuits and gravy, and she couldn’t even eat her order – she found the white gravy bland and tasteless, and honestly, it didn’t look very appetizing to me (I thought gravy was supposed to be brown, not beige). She was unable to eat her food, so she literally had no breakfast. My father in law did finish his food, and my toddler had a field day with the utensils because he was completely restless by the time we finally got served. After that incidence, I told my husband that I was DONE with the Kettle. It was one too many disappointments, and there are plenty of newcomer eateries to contend for our dollars. I want to feel good when I’m shelling out the kind of money I have to spend for breakfast at the Kettle (and that could easily run $40 for 3 people), and at the VERY LEAST, decent service if not good food.

So this is why I was ecstatic when I recently discovered Tin Roof Bistro in Manhattan Beach. I’ve seen the place for a while, whenever I take my little boy to his favorite place – SusieCakes in Manhattan Village Mall. Tin Roof was nearby and looked pricey from the outside. But the last day when my in laws were here, I wanted to treat them to something nice, at least, after what happened with them at the Kettle, I was embarrassed. I was even happier to see the outdoor seating areas of Tin Roof, which had a nice decorative outdoor water fountain, much to my little boy’s delight. I asked for a menu and was pleased at the prices. Later I took my in laws there for lunch. My husband got the Tuna sandwich, which he said was excellent, and the portions were generous. I fell in love with the bistro lunch option. My in laws loved their lunch sandwiches (my mother in law also got the bistro lunch and my father in law got the crab sandwich). My little boy fell in love with the water fountain. The service was awesome – the waitress remembered me from earlier in the morning when I asked for the menu. The atmosphere was amazing – AMAZING. I was SO happy with this restaurant. Oh, and I need to mention their MOVIE TUESDAY! Every first Tuesday of the month, free movie at 7pm! I told my husband that Tin Roof Bistro may just be my new favorite restaurant, for the price, the high quality of food, the service, and the wonderful ambiance.