My "Only in LA" tour continues. This time I visited Mambos, a restaurant that looks as though it had been a gas station (but not the cool vintage kind) in a previous life. You could say that it's at a town and country crossroads. The freeway is about a block away in one direction; the Silver Spur Stables and Stephen's Hay and Grain are close by but in the opposite direction.
I learned that Mambos has been around for 22 years and was indeed a gas station in its previous iteration. Now it's a Cuban restaurant. And in the best Cuban tradition, it has been so successfully repurposed that once you get inside you forget all about its petrol past.
You think you're in a small jazz place.
Practically every available inch of wall space is covered with black and white photos or paintings of musicians or the experience of music. You can't take it all in at once (although I tried). I noticed that Celia Cruz's image adorned a skateboard affixed to one of the walls. I was also drawn to a large black and white photo of a woman holding a trumpet, about to cross a city street. It looks as though it was taken during the '60s. She's wearing a sheath dress and carries a large purse (which I would love to have for myself). Her hair is up. The image makes me want to learn to play the trumpet so that I, too, could look so glamorous and unexpected while crossing a street.
Service at Mambos is lovely. Coffee here is Cuban and sweet. Fries are good. My husband had a Cuban sandwich. I think it was good but I'm not a fair judge of Cuban sandwiches. The best ones I ever had were from a bodega in New York and were part of my weekend ritual. The bodega is no more, but the memories remain and may have been embellished with the passage of time.
When would you come here? You might want to take a break after shopping at the nearby Home Depot. Or maybe you have a meeting at Disney and want a celebratory coffee afterwards. Mambos is about a 5 minute drive from the lot.
Last, but not least, there's live Latin jazz on Tuesday nights.
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