The stars still shine, but most Westside restaurants are hungering for business.

The stars still shine, but most Westside restaurants are hungering for business

Spago is still packing in stars and stargazers.

Gladstone's figures its gross will be up slightly to about $15 million this year. And Michael's in Santa Monica is holding its own despite the industry downturn.

But those are bright spots in a generally gloomy setting. L.A.'s Westside restaurant business, which has enjoyed almost uninterrupted success for years, is taking it on the chin.

Bob Morris, chairman of the company that owns Gladstone's on Pacific Coast (1) Highway and RJ's in Beverly Hills, said that for the first time in 20 years, annual gross revenues won't rise at RJ's.

Morris projects a gross of about $3.6 million at the restaurant, compared with nearly $4 million a year several years ago.

Morris said that's actually not bad, considering the dismal year some restaurants are having. Nobody wants to name names, but he and others say they've heard of places where business is down 30 percent.

That's a deep cut in any industry, but it's especially deep in the restaurant business, where owners expect the gross to rise every year. "If you're not up 3 to 5 percent every year in this business, you're not doing well," said Ray Bleau of Los Angeles-based Bleau Bush Co., a restaurant equipment supplier.

Morris blames several factors for the downturn, including the loss of business from conventions not returning to Los Angeles this year and the slew of new restaurants that have opened on the Westside.

But most of all, there's the recession.

"We don't sell as much lobster as we used to," Morris said. He said customers are generally choosing lower-priced entrees. They're opting for a bottle of wine where they might have ordered champagne. And his company's $600,000 annual catering business will be down about 25 percent this year.

Stan Kyker, executive vice president of the California Restaurant Association in Los Angeles, said the recession is just one of many factors that have slowed the industry in the past year or two. Others include "lifestyle changes" by young professionals who have started raising families and have less to spend on adult toys and good times. Lots of those young professionals -- many now getting too old to be called Yuppies -- live on the Westside.

Kyker said there is also increased competition from new restaurants and from supermarkets that have opened gourmet take-out delis.

"You can find people who are very definitely still doing well with their restaurants, but there are very many out there who are working a lot harder than they've ever had to work before to maintain their business," Kyker said.

Even those who are holding their own say they are lucky, considering the overall downturn.

Harvey Friend, manager at Michael's, said business this year is flat at the 12-year-old restaurant, compared with a 30 percent increase last year. Another big difference is that the lunch trade is much less predictable. "One day we'll get 250 people, the next day 100," he said.

Friend said Michael's, which typically grosses more than $200,000 a month, cut its prices by about a third in 1989. He said other Westside restaurants have cut prices or laid off staff. Or, like Michael's, they have solicited more private party business to boost revenues.

According to Bleau, restaurants are "one of the first businesses to get hit in a bad economy." He said higher-priced restaurants usually suffer more, and many on the Westside are among the higher-priced. He said his company is getting fewer remodeling jobs this year, one sign of how the downturn has affected restaurant suppliers.

Despite the downturn, many of the household names among Westside eateries are planning new ventures.

Morris said his company will open a new Gladstone's at Universal Studios and an Italian restaurant in Encino.

At Wolfgang Puck's Spago, general manager Tom Kaplan said the company will open a new restaurant called Granita in Malibu at the end of July. A second Spago is planned for Las Vegas in 1992.

Kaplan said business is good at all of Puck's restaurants, including Chinois in Santa Monica and the year-old Eureka in West Los Angeles.

"But we may not be the best barometer because I do know through the restaurant grapevine that some are doing very poorly," Kaplan said.

He said hard times often hit new restaurants harder than more established ones. On the Westside, where trendy restaurants come and go in less time than it takes to roast a duck, places like Spago (more than 9 years old) and Chinois (more than 8 years) qualify as institutions.

The restaurateurs also say other factors sometimes offset the effects of the recession. Morris said revenue is up 5 percent at his company's Cabo Cabo Cabo in Century City, primarily because of increased traffic from nearby movie theaters.

Morris said the recession, some gloomy weather this summer and the state's new 8.25 percent sales tax are discouraging to Westside restaurant operators. But he said he's enthusiastic by nature and remains optimistic.

But he said Gladstone's will continue to do well as long as "the sun shines and the tide doesn't rise."

PHOTO : Michael's restaurant: Cut its prices by about a third in 1989

Howard is a Santa Monica-based freelance writer.