I may be wrong — I hope I'm wrong — but we may have seen the last of the Love's Barbecue Restaurant chain. Once a mighty network of places to get decent ribs and great beans, the empire has slowly eroded over the years. Most of them closed. A few turned into non-Love's restaurants featuring essentially the same cuisine. That's what happened out in Brea, California. The Love's there is now a place called Riley's that is similar but it's not a Love's.
Until recently, the Love's website listed three remaining outlets — one in Lakewood, one in Chula Vista and one in — of all places — Jakarta, Indonesia. This has now changed. The one in Lakewood appears to have gone out of business. At least, there's no answer when I phone its number and it's no longer on the Love's site. The one in Chula Vista is off the site as well but is still operating, a la Riley's, as The Great Rib Restaurant, which was an occasional subtitle of some Love's advertising. The site now only lists the one in Jakarta, where I'm not likely to be visiting any time soon.
So is that it for one of my favorite chains and the place that served the best barbecue beans I've ever had? I hope not. I'm going to do a little legwork and see what I can find out but I'm not hopeful.
About those beans...
If you do a search, you can find two different recipes posted online that will allegedly yield Love's famous beans and while I haven't tried whipping up either, I can't believe they're legit. One is often attributed to the L.A. Times as a source and either is sometimes identified by someone saying, "I used to work at a Love's and here's the recipe we used." But neither one, for example, involves any use of either Love's barbecue sauce or the listed ingredients for that sauce...and I'm pretty sure the beans incorporated either the sauce or something similar. Also, of course, the fact that there are two different recipes is a tip-off that at least one is bogus and makes you suspicious about the other.
A few years ago, the Love's site announced that they'd soon be selling their beans online but they never did. One can still supposedly buy their sauce that way but I wonder if it's even being bottled any longer. I have two or three bottles remaining from the last case I ordered and when they're used up, I suppose I'll find out.
It's no longer on this site because I included it in one of my books but I once wrote a piece about how much I liked Love's. The article drew a lot of responses from folks who agreed and who longed for the beans...and I think I'll stop thinking about this now. If I keep on the topic, I'll be forced to hop in the car and drive to Brea or Chula Vista for some of the beans at the non-Love's outlets there. They may not be precisely the real thing but they're probably close and in this life, you take what you can get.
Gabe Kaplan, for whom I once wrote, hasn't really been away. He's been touring with his stand-up act and in plays. He's been hosting sports shows and playing in poker tournaments where one can win six figures...and he occasionally has. He's been pursuing a wide array of professions of things and now he's writing again, which is nice to see. I've encountered lots of comedians who were unethical, unkind and/or unclever. Gabe, at least when I knew him, was the exact opposite of those things. Thanks to Marina Stern for calling this piece to my attention.
Michael Ignatieff, a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, was once a supporter of the Iraq War. Now, he writes about the necessity for admitting when one is wrong.
A nice little dance number with Dean Martin, Buddy Ebsen, Lee J. Cobb, Charles Nelson Reilly and Jackie Vernon. Dino was one of the very few performers ever on TV who could make a bit like this work.
August 6, 2007
