For decades Stir Crazy was a coffee shop, a business squeezed among Melrose Avenue’s endless buildings of connected restaurants and shops and offices interrupted only by cross streets. Dino Trucco took over the place in 1994, tore out the Formica-tile decor from the previous occupant, called Java Man, and installed thick wood panels to surround its neat lines of tables with a log cabin vibe. Then time pretty much stopped inside for 30 years.
Macklin Casnoff grew up in Los Angeles and was a habitué of Stir Crazy. Over the years the espresso served from its counter never really graduated to the third-wave moment. The interior grew scruffy and, as a hangout for generations of writers, clammy from the haze of stray storylines left unfinished or unfulfilled under its roof.
But something about the shop’s size and community value had lodged in Casnoff’s psyche, so much so that he proposed the idea of opening a restaurant there with Mackenzie Hoffman. The two hospitality professionals had been working together through the pandemic at Jill Bernheimer’s wonderful wine shop Domaine L.A.
just up the street. In 2022 they approached Trucco, who decided he was ready to retire. Together with music industry veteran Harley Wertheimer as the third partner, they signed a new lease and set out to transform everything about Stir Crazy but its name.
The result: minimalist space, maximum impact. A warming renovation that serves form and function. A casual, Euro-Californian menu.
An incredi.