The deeply weird, very L.A. survival story of star-studded Dan Tana's

The communicative of Dan Tana’s, successful galore ways, is the communicative of Los Angeles.

In 1980, Dan Tana’s burst into flames. At the time, the Tana household was vacationing connected a distant Yugoslav land erstwhile a telegram arrived: “The edifice burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, 1 of Dan Tana’s daughters.

Dan Tana flew backmost to Los Angeles, expecting charred remains. Instead, helium recovered handwritten signs taped to the restaurant’s door: “Rebuild it. This is our home. Don’t alteration a thing,” recounts Katerina.

News of the occurrence reached instrumentalist Linda Ronstadt, who swore that Dan Tana’s served the champion sheet of spaghetti successful the world. The stone prima became the immigrant-run restaurant’s improbable patron saint, calling connected her narration with then-Gov. Jerry Brown to assistance wide the mode for its reopening. Just six weeks aft the fire, Dan Tana’s welcomed customers again, adjacent without a roof.

(Radius Book Group)

“They unfastened up the edifice with nary extortion connected it. There’s nary aerial conditioning unit. It was the hottest day,” says Katerina.

Oddly, the occurrence ushered successful a caller epoch for Dan Tana’s — a rebirth, even. Like Los Angeles, the edifice endured by reinventing itself. “In a weird way, helium rebuilt amended than helium ever could have, due to the fact that if the edifice hadn’t burned down, it mightiness not person lasted this long,” Katerina says.

Stories similar these capable the pages of “Everybody Came to Tana’s,” the precocious restaurateur’s memoir, which chronicles the outlandish travel that carried a young migrant from communist then-Yugoslavia to the helm of 1 of Los Angeles’ astir adored eating institutions. Dan Tana died past twelvemonth astatine property 90, but his bequest lives connected — wrong the edifice and present successful his ain words.

On a summertime afternoon, his daughters, Gabrielle and Katerina, beryllium astatine the Sunset Marquis bar, recounting their father’s singular beingness — peculiarly his championing of shot and his contributions to the sport. With the World Cup present unfolding crossed Los Angeles, the sisters accidental they can’t assistance but consciousness his presence. “One of his large wishes was to beryllium present for this year’s World Cup. That’s wherefore I cognize he’s here,” Gabrielle Tana says. “He was precise instrumental successful L.A. getting the World Cup. Our begetter was perpetually helping link people,” says Katerina.

In the last years of his life, Tana became determined to archer that story, moving with writers successful Serbia and yet a ghostwriter, Todd Gold, who requested nary credit; the resulting memoir feels wholly told successful Tana’s voice. “Our father, for years, was talking astir however helium wanted to archer his story,” says Gabrielle. “He was ever pinching himself astir the beingness that helium had — the stories, the adventures, and his luck.”

Tana had an antithetic way to becoming the edifice proprietor of the renowned Hollywood red-sauce hideout. Born successful present-day Serbia, Tana’s aboriginal beingness was marked by governmental oppression nether Communist rule. His father, a restaurateur, spent years arsenic a governmental prisoner.

Gabrielle and Katerina Tana with their dada astatine Dan Tana’s, circa 2001.

(Suzette Van Bylevelt)

“When you unrecorded successful a state wherever governmental powers are perpetually successful play, erstwhile you ain a restaurant, you’re the idiosyncratic who’s hosting idiosyncratic who’s having a unsafe conversation,” explains Katerina. From an aboriginal age, Dan Tana’s parent made Dan committedness not to extremity up successful the edifice business.

Instead, Dan Tana became a shot star, touring Europe with Red Star Belgrade earlier yet escaping to Belgium — a determination that would acceptable him connected the unbelievable way to Canada and past Los Angeles, wherever helium would service a stint managing a nightclub called Peppermint West and adjacent motorboat a humble acting vocation with the assistance of Natalie Wood.

The chapters travel the restaurant’s improbable success, offering bonzer anecdotes, specified arsenic however a Yugoslavian migrant happened to unfastened a red-booth, comfort-food Italian restaurant. The answer? Hiring Mussolini’s backstage chef. “It was 1 of 2 cook options that helium was fixed by his partners: Dan Reeves and Clarence Dan Martin, who funded the shot league. [Dan Reeves] besides bought the restaurant,” says Katerina.

Beyond dispatches from his red-and-white-checkered tablecloth associated and name-dropping, Dan Tana’s memoir outlines his important contributions to soccer. Throughout his life, helium maintained heavy ties to the planetary shot community, supporting Red Star Belgrade agelong aft helium retired from the sport. “He became an evangelist for the crippled due to the fact that helium thought it was a crippled that this state would appreciate,” says Katerina. “Football was ever the biggest emotion of his life.”

Craig Susser, near successful black, has been greeting patrons astatine Dan Tana’s for decades.

(Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

Last November, erstwhile England faced disconnected with Serbia for the World Cup qualifying games, the stadium held a infinitesimal of soundlessness for Dan Tana’s passing. “There were radical wrong the crippled who truly wanted to admit his publication to the game,” says Katerina.

“A bully edifice has a bully bar, and a bully barroom has ghosts,” reads the introduction. For Dan Tana’s, arsenic acold arsenic ghosts go, they comprise a who’s who of Hollywood royalty. Johnny Carson erstwhile called it his favourite restaurant. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Marilyn Monroe and different A-list stars were known to haunt the bar.

Even with its estimation arsenic a watering spread for Hollywood’s biggest names, Dan Tana refused to pander to celebrities. “Everybody was treated the same. He ne'er wanted the edifice to beryllium afloat of celebrities. He wanted to marque definite that determination were doctors, lawyers and teachers,” Gabrielle says. “He was astir a antiauthoritarian socialist successful that way.”

A revealing anecdote from the aboriginal pages of the book: Tana turned distant Barbara Sinatra’s connection to bargain retired the edifice for a nighttime for Frank Sinatra’s day astatine $25,000. Tana refused. It wouldn’t beryllium just to his regulars. Frank Sinatra ne'er acceptable ft successful the edifice again.

Sonja Perencevic and Dan Tana be the restaurant’s 50th day enactment successful Los Angeles successful 2014.

(Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images)

In galore ways, Tana was 1 of Hollywood’s quiescent powerfulness brokers, earning power done humility and respect alternatively than status. In 1972, mysterious mafia members came into the edifice to inquire Tana to procure early-screening tickets for “The Godfather.” Naturally, Tana obliged. The mafia returned to study they loved the now-classic film.

The proximity to the Troubadour besides made the edifice a hangout for up-and-coming names successful stone music. “He fed truthful galore of those musicians. He wouldn’t complaint them. These were kids that had nothing,” says Gabrielle. She recounts a nighttime erstwhile musicians from the Troubadour celebrated the extremity of the Vietnam War astatine Dan Tana’s; the lawsuit went undocumented, mislaid to history.

Rock stars aside, the spot is simply a writer’s associated too. Eve Babitz — who was a adjacent person of 93-year-old Deanne Mencher, who inactive makes the cheesecakes astatine Dan Tana’s — was known for socializing astatine the restaurant. “If you got hungry, you had to locomotion implicit to Dan Tana’s. Tana’s was delicious and evil — each that garlic,” Babitz erstwhile wrote successful her semi-autobiographical novel, “L.A. Woman.” Screenwriters, journalists and famed L.A. writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were besides known to predominant the restaurant.

In fact, Gabrielle and Katerina property the restaurant’s aboriginal colossal occurrence to a Los Angeles Times review. It was 1966, and the edifice was struggling. Art Ryon, a columnist astatine The Times, happened to halt astatine the edifice earlier a screening astatine the Writers Guild of America and ordered mushrooms. “The L.A. Times made the restaurant,” Katerina says. “The adjacent time there’s a enactment astir the block, and my begetter has nary thought what happened.” Tana was informed that helium received a rave five-star reappraisal successful The Times. Success soon followed.

Chicken Parmesan from Dan Tana’s.

(Jakob Layman)

The adjacent procreation of Hollywood — including drama stars similar Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock — has continued the tradition. “SNL” formed subordinate James Austin Johnson expresses his fondness for the restaurant. He discovered the edifice aft proceeding Ed Begley Jr. rhapsodize astir it. “The archetypal intrigue is uncovering retired who Dan Tana is,” says Johnson. “It has a West Hollywood mystique, similar Chateau Marmont — similar erstwhile Hollywood, the spot and the concern were each the same.”

Johnson loves restaurants that consciousness preserved successful time. “It’s the thought that you tin physique thing close the archetypal clip and past sphere it, truthful that radical tin beryllium a portion of your bully thought erstwhile it happens,” says Austin Johnson.

Gabrielle and Katerina recognition the enduring entreaty of Dan Tana’s to its persistent deficiency of pretentiousness. The ambiance evokes a Sinatra-era simplicity. “I deliberation celebrities felt safe. They weren’t photographed, and they would beryllium near alone,” says Gabrielle. The edifice has kept its dim pinkish lights, which Gabrielle notes, “made everybody look good.”

The nutrient has besides remained consistent, with ample portions and comfortableness food. “It’s not fancy, but it’s the champion chickenhearted Parmesan,” says Gabrielle. Over the decades, Dan Tana was approached astir expanding the edifice and opening 2nd locations. He ever refused, the restaurant’s humility ever mirroring the antheral down it. The restaurant, which felt similar an anomaly, could not beryllium replicated. “He ever said: if I knew what I did right, I would bash it again,” says Katerina.

Dan Tana’s originality continues to seizure the city’s attention, its bequest present preserved successful a memoir and carried connected by its caller owners, Mihajlo and Sonja Perenčević, who were friends of Dan Tana. Within its pages, the scholar becomes 1 of Dan Tana’s beloved ghosts. “In a municipality that’s ever trying to beryllium thing that’s not, it’s not trying to beryllium anything,” says Katerina. “Dan Tana’s is longevity successful the midst of ephemera.”

Connors is a civilization writer successful L.A. She covers books, food, amusement and offbeat Los Angeles. She’s presently astatine enactment connected a publication of essays astir tourism successful each its forms.