The Seats and Plates Are Filled at Maxwell’s

“Hi there, Bill,” said Robin, our waitress, as a tall, blond man with a neat beard, ribbed sweater and jeans slid onto the counter stool beside me. “Can I get you a cup of coffee to start?”

Whoa there! I could get used to this. No wonder Maxwell’s is crowded Sunday mornings. Two men in sport shirts closed their newspapers, vacated a booth and the line winding around the corner of Walgrove Avenue and Washington Boulevard in West Los Angeles did the breakfast shuffle.

I stuck my fork into Maxwell’s famous dish, the lip-smacking “Garbage Omelet,” a platter heaped with fresh eggs, cheese, ham, spinach, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and Spanish sauce. And whatever else. The menu’s most expensive at $6.50, it comes with cottage fries and your-choice toast or bagel.

Melted cheese oozed onto the plate. Another waitress, neat and healthy looking in tight jeans and tank top, beamed and poured me a refill. Yes, Virginia, there are compensations for rising at 7.

To my left on the pine-paneled wall, Napoleon, retreating from Moscow in green and pink tints on horseback, gazed mournfully down over a rugged profile of a buffalo.

On the opposite wall, several art nouveau beauties, their limbs swathed in filmy gauze, dreamed over fantasy castles and moonbeams, fixed motionless in space and eternity by worn, wooden frames. Beside them, Teddy Roosevelt stared straight into ’88.

Above a turn-of-the-century kitchen cabinet stood a glass gallon jar filled with golf balls, and beyond, a metal milk can. A Venice High football poster, showing two natty fellows in leather helmets and striped shirts, announced a game against Gardena.

Bill Benoit, William as he prefers, used to eat at Maxwell’s every day. Now he comes in once a week because he’s back in college, “studying biology and life sciences. The food’s great,” he said. “It’s home-cooked, but I can get food anywhere. This is an extension of what home is, or ought to be. Like one large family. I see the same people every time.”

The door opened and a middle-aged man in a tie and white sweater poked his head inside. “Is this Maxwell’s?” he asked. A chorus answered yes. Michael Maxwell, owner for 16 years, has his name painted on the outside, writ large in blue, but the place is easy to miss, just another two-story, gray-stucco box.

Maxwell, formerly a Navy man, pastry chef, manager at a Marie Callender’s, who’s “been around restaurants all my life,” isn’t worried. The four booths and 10 counter stools in front and another dozen oak booths and tables in the back room--60 seats in all--are always filled.

“I’m a junk collector with three garages full of the stuff,” he admits, nodding toward the antiques on the wall. “My great grandmother saved everything, and some of this was hers.”

“Mike comes in a 4 a.m. every day and makes all the pies,” says Carol Elliott, the manager. “His apple is a big favorite.” Elliott, a 10-year Maxwell’s veteran, runs things four days a week. “We grind our own meat,” she says, “soups are homemade, serve real turkey. None of that pressed turkey.”

Another coffee refill; Benoit leaves, and Tom Duley, in glasses, sweater and slacks, takes his place. Duley, an architect on the junior staff at Frank Gehry & Associates, close by in Venice, comes for weekday lunches.

“Maxwell’s has personality,” he said. “For instance. The person who introduced me to this place always requested a certain, special plate when he ordered. It had a sort of Buffalo Bill figure drawn on it. I don’t know how they did it, but the waitresses always managed to dig it out for him.”

Maxwell’s, at 13329 Washington Boulevard in West Los Angeles, is open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. Smoking not allowed.