Montana blues

Last Friday night I walked along Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. The street has few evening hotspots – R and D Grill, Father’s Office, and a few restaurants with better than average food and wine – Babalu and Cafe Montana. In the recent past these restaurants are hopping, sometimes even at 9 or later in the evening. Father’s Office always, inexplicably, has a line and a bouncer more to reinforce the fire code than to card. R and D is always jammed – it’s an oasis of great comfort food and cocktails that appears recession-proof. (It’s the kind of place where the $12 cocktails seem somehow worth it, and where ordering a side of turkey meatballs or deviled eggs seems like a perfect idea.)

But what alarmed me more than the sparse restaurant crowds was the the number of empty storefronts. In the 10 blocks between 17th Street and just beyond 7th Street, there were 19 stores for lease. This area of Santa Monica is renowned for its high-priced merchandise and leases, so it’s inevitable that some stores will buckle from the recession. But to see such a large number – and that didn’t include the stores with sales that sounded suspiciously like going out of business deals – does not bode well.