I’m still working on what was going to be today’s post, so that’ll have to be pushed back. 
Today’s post will be brief. I just want to say welcome back to LAX’s iconic Encounter restaurant. It reopened again yesterday after months under the knife. I guess that’s required if you’re an LA star.
If you don’t know Encounter, you may know it as the Theme Building. Or you may just know it as that cool looking structure in the picture at left. Back in February, a hunk of concrete fell off one of the arches, and it’s been closed ever since. The arches don’t actually support the building, so there was no structural danger, but I suppose they didn’t want anyone walking underneath and getting conked on the head. When I was at LAX on Saturday, they still had a bunch of scaffolding up on the structure, but apparently the hard work is done and it’s time to open again.
Right now, they are open for lunch from 11a to 4p every week. To start, dinner will only be served on Friday and Saturday from 4p to 930p. Personally, I’d recommend just going for a drink and a view. Unless the menu has changed, the food is likely still mediocre and overpriced. But the view makes it worth the trip.
Now if we can just get them to reopen the observation deck up top . . . .
8 comments on “Welcome Back, Encounter”
According to today’s LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-encounter13nov13,1,3287305.story
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Now, after they get the observation deck open, could they get to working on renovating Terminal 3?
OK.. so the quote got cut out…
Way back when before all of the terminals at LAX grew, and grew, and grew (and before the roadway became a double decker), there used to be open space on the second floor between each terminal. Stairways from the street led up to these observation decks. The first time I went up to one at Terminal 6, I saw Pacific Martins and F-27s, PSA Electras, Continental 707s and 720s, and Delta Convair 880s and DC-8s right in front of my eyes.
Of course, the terminals they replaced at the old facility further east on Century were one big observation deck.
That is just awesome news. I’ve got an email in to my PR contact at LAWA to see if I can get more info. If I get it, I’ll post it here.
Ok, here’s the story straight from Nancy Castles, PR Director for LAWA:
“The observation deck will re-open AFTER the stucco has been replaced, which won’t be completed until next year. Right now, one sees the steel skeletal structure of the Theme Building design. No work is expected to be done on the Observation Deck so the tall acrylic fences/walls will remain. No holes will be drilled into the fence/wall for photography. The acrylic wall was installed about 15 years ago in order to prevent people from climbing and possibly falling from the Observation Deck.”
So, it’s a bummer that there won’t be any camera holes, but it’s still better than nothing.
CF, just a comment here about the new “Was this comment useful to you” bit. First, awesome idea it looks great. However, maybe a little improvement? 1.) It is actually a little confusing which button to press for which comment, because it isn’t exactly intuitive…do I press the button that’s on the top – or below – the post I want to comment on? Originally I figured the bold black line “boxed in” the comment, so thus it was the yes/no option on top. But then I scrolled to the bottom and realized that the last button is underneath the final post (and there’s no yes/no button at the top) so it must be the one under the bold line, not above. Still could cause some confusion.
2.) Entering the email address is a bit of a turn-off each time you want to comment, maybe we could get logins to the site instead
3.) Yelp.com, that food rating site, has a different “scoring” system for its comments. It only utilizes positive buttons (hence there is not a “no”) button. Basically they have three types, “useful,” “funny,” or “cool.” I’m not recommending you use their adjectives. It isn’t really compatible with giving each user an average rating either, but just something else to consider. Basically your street cred is just how many times users have clicked a (positive) button for you, and since they’re all positive you just add up the totals. It isn’t as good as an average, but I’ve actually grown fond of it because there’s just no negativity involved.
Anyhow though, I spent all these words adding suggestions when really this is a great site, great blog and it looks like you’re trying to implement some interesting things.
All excellent feedback, QRC. I was actually going to put a post up about the change so I could get everyone’s feedback. The whole reason for doing this is I absolutely love the comments I get. If there’s anything else I can do to encourage more commenting, I’m going to do it. So I thought I’d see how this would work.
1) Yes, it is confusing. This is how they set it up, but you’re allowed to change it. I’m going to hope my limited CSS skills can help me make some changes so it’s more clear.
2) Yeah, I was a bit concerned about the email thing as well. Unfortunately, I am a blog of one, and I don’t have the ability to make changes like that unless someone else has it nicely packaged. I will keep looking for other solutions, and if you see one, feel free to forward it on.
3) Again, it’s that same issue of prepackaging. This is how SezWho puts it all together. I actually like being able to thumbs down a comment, because I much prefer not to moderate very much. If someone posts a really dumb comment (which has happened from time to time), then people can vote it down.
Like I said, I will have a thread about this later today or tomorrow, so let’s pick up the conversation again over there. Thanks again for the feedback.