Riots or no riots: A decades-old rumor...

Riots or no riots: A decades-old rumor has it that the waiters at the Original Pantry Cafe at 9th and Figueroa streets are ex-cons. It’s pure myth but so widespread that the 24-hour eatery has received letters in the past from prisoners inquiring about its hiring policy.

“We go along with it (the rumor)--it’s sort of a part of our tradition,” Mario Frisan, manager of the 68-year-old cafe, said with a laugh.

Perhaps the Pantry’s eerie reputation was one reason it not only was untouched by the rioting but never ceased business, thus maintaining its boast: “Never closed, never without customers.”

Yes, Frisan says, the eatery did have customers in the wee hours--”mostly police officers and sheriff’s (deputies) and CHP (officers), starting or ending shifts.”

As for closing the doors, what good would it have done anyway?

Explained Frisan: “Our doors don’t have any locks.”

Looted looter: During one assault on a computer store in Koreatown, some looters parked their car, left the engine running and disappeared into the store. A resident turned off the ignition, removed the keys and tossed them onto a nearby roof.

Two hours later, reports Tony Munroe, the looters “had managed to hot-wire their own car but could not release the lock on the steering wheel. One of the passengers in the car walked over to a group of residents and asked if he could borrow a ratchet wrench set.

“One woman replied: ‘The last person I loaned my ratchet set to never returned it. Sorry.’ ”

Cut! Take two: So there was ABC’s jeans-clad Ted Koppel engrossed in an interview with a group of people near the corner of Normandie and Florence avenues, looking very much like the reporter who had dared to return to Ground Zero alone.

Then two newspapermen ambled over toward the crowd. Koppel was not too engrossed in the dialogue to yell at them: “Hey! You wanna get out of my shot? Get out of my shot!”

Unfortunate timing: Obviously, the May issue of Gateway, the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau publication, was put together before the rioting.

Meanwhile, government stumbles along: An official from the state Department of Justice nonchalantly asked a clerk at a downtown Bank of America branch for access to the agency’s safe deposit box. She said no.

The clerk explained to the stunned official that “the state hasn’t paid” its yearly bill for use of the boxes. The official insisted upon visiting the box. The clerk conferred with her superiors. Finally, the clerk gave him the OK after the official promised the bill would be paid. Not by check, we hope.

And chatter returns to the singles bars: One guy at a Santa Monica bistro resorted to psychobabble to impress the woman next to him at the bar. “I think,” he said, “I came from a non-dysfunctional family.” And we’re not unimpressed.

miscelLAny:

It’s probably of little comfort to L.A. businesses, but this is National Tourism Week.