It was a quiet Sunday evening in August when Madlib and I found ourselves heading due north on the 101 freeway towards Hollywood. The freeways were empty, and that was a good thing, because our destination took us to the opposite side of town at the edge of the Los Feliz/Hollywood divide—longtime BurgerFile hideaway, The 101 Coffee Shop. The coffee shop is secreted beneath the Hollywood Best Western Hotel on Franklin Avenue and if you can get past the leisurely service and indy-scenesters that infest the place like cucarachas, you’ll find a classic burger done right. This is a burger that makes no high fallutin’ pretense with imported cheeses or French marinades, no brioche, no kobe beef. Its comfortable in its own skin and because of it, rises above the din in our crowded metropolis.

The 101 Coffee Shop is co-owned by Warner Ebbink and Brandon Boudet, the restaurateurs who also bring you Dominick’s and Little Dom’s. If you’ve seen the movie Swingers, this is the diner Vince Vaughn table danced in, although it has been remodeled since and no longer shares any resemblance to the one depicted in the movie. Currently, it sports an early 70s retro vibe. No, not the jive turkey 70s you spent watching The Love Boat in Grandma’s livingroom, the 70s are cool now, faithfully re-imagined for the 21^st century complete with volcanic rock wall and counter covered in feaux wood grained Formica. It’s convincing, and going there the first time you might think you’ve just walked into an authentic vestige from the dawn of the Disco era. But don’t be fooled, this is Hollywood, and just like Angelyne’s 44DD bust, it ain’t the real deal, only made to look that way.

You’ll have to seat yourself here, and if you don’t know that, the wait staff will probably be too busy to notice you, so make sure you grab a menu from the counter and find a place to sit on your own. This night Madlib and I sat at the counter, browsed the menu for a moment and settled on what we both knew we wanted before we even left home. I ordered up one cheeseburger ($8.95), medium, with fries, and for my health, a side salad ($4.50), bleu cheese. Madlib got a hamburger ($7.95), medium well, with fries.

My salad arrived first and though made from Hollywood Farmer’s Market sourced butter leaf lettuce, cucumber slices, grape tomatoes and carrot shavings, its nothing to write home about. As always, the tomatoes were plump with juicy innards, but too sour. The bleu cheese dressing came pre-applied and kinda watery. Sometimes I have to ask for an extra cup of dressing because the toss is overly dry, but not this night. It gets the job done, though I don’t come here for the salad.

Ten minutes passed and out marched the burgers on round dinner plates, open faced with bun lain aside. The classic white sponge bread had an unexpectedly firm crust and pillowy interior—clearly of a higher grade—which supported the weight of the assembly with confidence. A single leaf of butter lettuce, giant tomato slice, cup of home brew chipotle mayonnaise and lone-wolf whole dill pickle rested next to a sizable dose of straight cut regular and sweet potato fries. The patty was grilled over a flame, which I like, made obvious from the scarification that lined it. It wasn’t overly thick, not too thin either, but in perfect proportion to the burger as a whole. American cheese melted across the top under a pile of grilled onion. I like my 101 burger with only the materials provided sans pickle—so I ate that separately, it was tasty with a crisp crunch but too potent for the burger. Drool a third cup of sauce on top of the patty, add the veggies, seal the package up with the bun, put a stamp on it and send it home.

The burger was of average dimension so it fits into the mouth comfortably. No painful stretching of chapped lips to get this baby inside. The patty had a juicy core and that carbon-y, crunchy bite only attainable from a grill. The soft bun and American cheese went gooey in the mouth contrasting nicely against the vegetable crunch. I like the meat here so much I broke a piece off and sampled it in isolation. Slight saltiness, moist and crunchy at the same time, big meaty flavor…Dy-no-mite!

It’s somewhat novel that they serve a mix of regular and sweet potato fries, but it doesn’t mean they’re good. At first I was tricked by remnant skin on the fries into thinking that they must be cut on site. But as I ate my way through the pile some limp pretenders exposed the ruse. These fries were frozen, a fact later confirmed by our server. The sweet potato fries were cut thin and cooked all the way through leaving no soft interior. If you like ‘em extra crunchy, you’ll like ‘em here. If you don’t, you wont. I don’t, so I didn’t. But I’m not a hater, so I ate every last one.

If you still have room, or if you don’t and like the feeling of bloat, get the waffle brownie sundae for dessert. I consistently rate it against the competition’s and it remains the best I’ve had—accept no imitations. Unfortunately, my nutritional intake for the day had already reached a catastrophic, belt snapping level, so I had to take a pass on the sweets.

I understand the 101 Coffee Shop experience is not perfect, what with the hit or miss sides and service that reliably offends. But if you can appreciate an honest burger that doesn’t fake the funk and tastes good, you’ll learn to love the place and accept it for what it is.

Grade: B.
Case closed.

The 101 Coffee Shop
6145 Franklin Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323) 467-1175

Open Daily, 7 a.m.–3 a.m.
www.the101coffeeshop.com