The "New" Downtown Culver City: Cook's Double Dutch Closing After 11 Years, Moving East

The LAT's Daily Dish blog has news that Jennie Cook is closing Cook's Double Dutch on Washtington Boulevard in Culver City and moving only her catering operation to Silver Lake in late August. Call it a case of landlord squabbles: When Cook first opened the restaurant in 1987, her rent was $3500; now it's $7000 and she says her landlord wants to up it to $9000 a month. Cook says: "I mean, seriously, how greedy can one person be?...He's asking $5 a square foot and I'm not in that little buzz zone that's turning into the Grove." (The restaurant is a few blocks down near the Kirk Douglas Theatre.) Landlord John Byers says he's getting $5 a foot from other tentants, and basically if she doesn't like it, she can leave. And so she's leaving.

More interesting are the comments about how the success of the "new" downtown Culver City is affecting longstanding places like Jennie's, and what it means for the area: "Remember how popular Westwood was in the 90s? And remember how expensive and trendy it got? And remember how it was all about fast cars and bling? And remember how it died in a fiery crash (almost literally)? Well, we're off to the races again here in Culver City...What was once a great little oasis is about to become a mecca for the trendy. I saw it last week at Rush St., the new meat market in Culver City (VALET PARKING?? FULL PARKING LOTS?)."

What say you: Is the "new" Culver City good or bad? Will it last?
· Cook's Double Dutch to Move to the Eastside [Daily Dish]

[Photo credit: greenlagirl, Flickr]