NEWS ITEM: Westside Pavilion to be
UCLA Biomedical Research Center
Forget about that shopping mall’s
renovation, what matters, really,
is what happens across the street
to LA’s The Apple Pan
with its most incongruous
horseshoe counter
where tireless, harried men
wearing incongruous
white paper hygiene hair caps
shout your orders
as they slide plates
of classic apple pie
topped ala mode, or plain
make and serve
one-style-fits-all
American cheeseburgers
with fries
to the eager and enthusiastic
sitting on the counter’s
red leather-topped chrome stools.
Always a waiting line.
Always worth the wait.
Owned by the same family
since 1947
sold recently to eatery saviors
a Beverly Hills couple
who also bought
Nate ‘n Al deli
promising
(and this is the heart of the story)
to never change a thing.
About the Author: Diana Rosen is a poet, flash writer, and author of 6 nonfiction books on tea, 7 other nonfiction books plus High Stakes & Expectations, a hybrid of poetry and flash written during lockdown rather than doing laundry. She writes for web sites about (surprise!) tea, and knows she’s nearly home when LA’s majestic Griffith Observatory comes into view. To read more of her work, please visit her portfolio site, authory.com/dianarosen
Image Credit: Russell Lee “At the hamburger stand on the Fourth of July, Vale, Oregon” Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 