A Stillborn Alligator in West Hollywood

A few weeks ago, this column told the sad, brief story of Ashley’s, which had opened and closed (despite good early notices and decent business) in a month’s time, on the site of the former Silvio’s in West Hollywood.

The following week we announced the impending opening of a restaurant called Alligator Alley, which was to occupy the premises vacated by the once-legendary Dominick’s, also in West Hollywood, and which was to boast Lisa Stalvey, ex-chef at Spago, as executive chef.

Well, the restaurant business is nothing if not uncertain, and now those two stories have, in a sense, dovetailed. The Dominick’s property, as it happens, is held by the same group that owns the Silvio’s property, and Stalvey’s restaurant ended up closing prematurely too-- in her case, before it even opened. “We’d already remodeled the interior and had our menu all set to go,” Stalvey says, “when the owners changed their minds and decided to sell the lease on the property to 72 Market Street. That was the end of Alligator Alley.”

Stalvey adds that she hopes to try again with her own restaurant, perhaps in the Wilshire District, and is talking to potential investors now.

Meanwhile, incidentally, 72 Market Street isn’t buying into Dominick’s after all. “We’ve decided not to go through with the deal at this time,” says 72 co-owner Tony Bill.

PIZZA PAIN: It’s getting so you can’t do anything today without hurting yourself somehow. Now the New England Journal of Medicine has identified a new malady called (I swear, I’m not making this up) pizza cutter’s palsy. It seems that workers who slice too many pizzas with one of those roller-blade cutters sometimes damage nerves in the palms of their hands, causing a mild but palpable motor dysfunction. The cure? Stop using an implement that presses hard into your hand, says the respected journal. . . .

PUCK FREEZE-OUT?: And speaking of pizza--in an item headlined “Puck Parts Turn Sour,” a free newspaper on the Westside recently reported that chef Wolfgang Puck had decided to get out of the frozen dessert business and to concentrate on (besides his several restaurants) his line of frozen pizzas. Not so, says Puck--at least not necessarily. “What happened,” he told me recently, “was that the rent doubled at the plant where we were manufacturing the desserts, in Torrance, so we closed the operation down temporarily. We stopped making desserts for about six months, in fact, but we had plenty of back stock, so most stores still have them in their freezer cases. We hope to start production again, probably in Lodi.”

NEW TABLES IN TOWN: Rosa’s, an elegant new regional Italian restaurant, has opened in Ontario, just off the San Bernardino Freeway. . . . Barry’s Burgers is new in West L.A., launched by Barry Fogel, owner of the Jacopo’s Pizzerias and Pizza Primas. . . . The Big Easy, a casual New Orleans-style cafe, has recently appeared on Robertson Boulevard near Cadillac Avenue . . . . And the Second Coming, described as a “private supper club & speak-easy” serving Central American cuisine and featuring an on-site art gallery, has debuted on Bonnie Brae Street in midtown L.A. . . .