Hollywood’s century-old Musso & Frank Grill: Closed but hopeful during coronavirus crisis

Mark Echeverria
 sounds remarkably optimistic for an L.A. restaurateur on the day after Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered all such establishments closed for weeks to help halt the spread of the novel coronavirus.

With good reason, though. Echeverria
 is COO of The Musso & Frank Grill, which celebrated 100 years in business on Hollywood Boulevard in September.

A favorite of filmmakers from Charlie Chaplin to Quentin Tarantino (who shot several scenes for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” there) and countless celebrities, the restaurant famous for its sand dabs, chicken pot pie and “perfect” stirred martinis has weathered a century of crises since it began as Frank’s Francois Cafe in 1919.

That was in the middle of the Spanish flu epidemic that took more lives on Earth than the recently concluded World War I. The restaurant’s records don’t go back quite that far, but Echeverria and company had enough to pore through for their centennial celebrations, and to put the current crisis into perspective.

“We have corporate minutes that go back to 1927,” or two years before history’s most catastrophic stock market crash, Echeverria explained. “We’ve seen and been able to review some of the hardships the restaurant has been through since then. Obviously, the Great Depression, World War II, some pretty big hardships.

“The one, sort of consistent theme that I see in those, other economic downturns and whatnot is to take care of the team, the people that you work with, and take care of the community,” the fourth generation family operator of the restaurant continued. “So, don’t forget about those that supported you all along. We do take that very serious.”

Indeed, Musso’s is as famous for its red half-jacketed, multi-decades-old wait staff and bartenders as it is for being Keith Richards’ and Raymond Chandler’s favorite Hollywood hangout. That staff is gone until the mandated end-of-March, during which time Musso’s will be closed for business while a skeleton construction crew works on an already-scheduled, private dining room expansion.

“Our food doesn’t travel well, so we’ve never explored a takeout option,” said Echeverria, referencing the one operation L.A.’s closure order permits restaurants to continue. “Right now, instead of exploring that option I’d think we’d rather our team go home to their families and take care of them. Hopefully, in two weeks we can all get back to work.”

Like everyone else in 2020, he expects to lose money. But part of that involves softening the blow to Musso’s staff.

“I don’t think there’s any way around economic damage,” Echeverria acknowledged. “So we are preparing for it, we’re doing everything we can right now to help mitigate it. But we’re also very dedicated to our team. At least through the next two weeks, as the order by Garcetti says, we are going to be paying all of our employees based on their normal schedule and normal hourly rate. We want to make sure that they’re taken care of during all of this and that we relieve a little bit of stress from them by doing so.”

Asked about insurance coverage, Echeverria noted that that’s the question of the century for all restaurateurs and small business owners. While his broker combs through policies for force majeure and other clauses, the proprietor said there’s been no communication from his insurance company yet. But he’s been advised to:

“Make the insurance company tell you no,” Echeverria said. “At least go ahead and claim it.”

The most specific instances of plugging through hard times that the old records and menus reflect related to the food rationing that was part of daily American life during World War II.

“The chefs had to get pretty creative with the food that they served,” Echeverria reported. “The menu definitely had to be tweaked in order to meet the supply that we had. That seemed to take place further on in World War II, when there was some rationing and that kind of thing.

“We’re not anywhere near there yet,” he added reassuringly. “The good part about what we’re going through right now is that the supply chain of food is pretty robust. We do not anticipate any huge food shortages or anything in the future. So I don’t think we’re going to have to do any major tweaks to the menu or anything, but certainly that is a lesson that we can learn. If things do get worse and harder, we can adapt. We’ve done that for 100 years and we’ve got some pretty good documentation on how they did it before us, so I think we’ll be able to navigate that if that comes to be.”

The restaurateur does sound sensibly concerned about what will happen if the ban on business isn’t lifted by March 31 as currently scheduled. He said at that point, Musso’s will probably take steps toward a way to make its food deliverable and available for takeout.

Not sure if that can be done with the perfect martinis – the absence of which, he realizes, might be a bigger blow to the entertainment industry than the closing of movie theaters.

“The effect can be drastic,” Echeverria acknowledged with a gloom-slashing laugh, “but just let everybody know that we will have plenty of martinis ready to go, lined up, when we are allowed to open back up.

“I hope it’s the case that people go out and support their businesses,” he added on a more serious note. “This is not going to be easy, it’s really not. But when it is all said and done, I hope people do go out and support all their local businesses and communities. And hopefully we have a quick rebound.”

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