The venerable West Hollywood eatery Dan Tana’s is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year while also mourning possibly its most loyal customer, Dabney Coleman , who died last week . The “9 to 5” actor was a fan of the star-studded yet homey Italian spot for decades — the restaurant’s signature dish, the New York steak, is named for him — and it’s what he invariably ordered. “It’s the best New York saloon in L.
A.,” Coleman told the New York Times in 2005. There are still plenty of Hollywood regulars — on a recent night Chris Pine and J.
J. Abrams were at a center table in the main room — but there will likely never be anyone quite so faithful as Coleman. “He would always sit at table one,” remembers Alison Martino, Vintage L.
A. founder, Spectrum News contributor and longtime friend of the restaurant. Martino said Coleman was a big fan of crooners like her dad, actor and singer Al Martino, and in the ’90s and after, she became part of Coleman’s gang that often included Harry Dean Stanton.
“There was a lot of smoking in there, Harry Dean and Dabney sort of held court at this table one from 10:30 at night till closing — back then people people would eat later, everything was different,” she remembers. In fact, Coleman tried to move to New York a decade or so ago, but Martino remembers that he only lasted three weeks before returning to L.A.
“I asked him what brought you back here, and he answered ‘Dan Tana’s,'” she recalls. The rest.
