People of Urth

WITH its delicious (albeit overpriced) food, trendy coffee drinks, and prime, curbside location in Beverly Hills, one of my favorite places to people-watch in the city is Urth Café. A friend of mine and I traveled down to Melrose last week for some lunch and some window-shopping, and as always at Urth, we got more than an eyeful.

One of my favorite things to do whenever I eat there is just to sit and watch the eclectic crowd that is always bound to be dining on the small, iron patio furniture and listen in on their conversations. There is always a woman with a miniature French bulldog feeding it scraps of her $30 lunch under the table. There are always the movie industry people with their brief cases tucked under the table and ignoring the person across from them for whatever is so enthralling on their Blackberry or iPhone. And there are always the Beverly Hills housewives who require two tables, one for their lunch and one for the pile of shopping bags filled with designer items that they purchased before working up an appetite.

This time there were two 6-foot tall, wafer-thin models, who pushed their untouched mixed green salads around on their plates while discussing an upcoming photo shoot. There were two men on a blind date next to us, awkwardly trying to make conversation by comparing diet strategies. There was also an extremely tall, longhaired man in knee-high studded combat boots and a large top hat who appeared to be doing a Slash impersonation.

However, there were no celebrity spottings, as there so often are at Urth. That is, until about halfway through our lunch when both of us looked up from our Boba teas to see Jesus walking down the sidewalk. Yes, that’s right… Jesus. He had long brown hair and a full beard and wore the traditional Jesus-like white robe with sandals. He was even carrying the Bible in one arm and blessing all of the customers eating their lunch on the sidewalk. I guess it just goes to show that in this eclectic city, not even the trendiest café is off limits to anyone. Not even the son of God himself.

-- Megan McMurtrey

(photo, urth cafe, tiarescott via flickr creative commons)