Dan Tana flew back to Los Angeles, expecting charred remains. Instead, he found handwritten signs taped to the restaurant\u2019s door: \u201cRebuild it. This is our home. Don\u2019t change a thing,\u201d recounts Katerina.<\/p>\n
News of the fire reached musician Linda Ronstadt, who swore that Dan Tana\u2019s served the best plate of spaghetti in the world. The rock star became the immigrant-run restaurant\u2019s unlikely patron saint, calling on her relationship with then-Gov. Jerry Brown to help clear the way for its reopening. Just six weeks after the fire, Dan Tana\u2019s welcomed customers again, even without a roof.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey open up the restaurant with no roof on it. There\u2019s no air conditioning unit. It was the hottest day,\u201d says Katerina.<\/p>\n
Oddly, the fire ushered in a new era for Dan Tana\u2019s \u2014 a rebirth, even. Like Los Angeles, the restaurant endured by reinventing itself. \u201cIn a weird way, he rebuilt better than he ever could have, because if the restaurant hadn\u2019t burned down, it might not have lasted this long,\u201d Katerina says.<\/p>\n
Stories like these fill the pages of \u201cEverybody Came to Tana\u2019s,\u201d <\/a>the late restaurateur\u2019s memoir, which chronicles the outlandish journey that carried a young immigrant from communist then-Yugoslavia to the helm of one of Los Angeles\u2019 most adored dining institutions. Dan Tana died last year at age 90, but his legacy lives on \u2014 inside the restaurant and now in his own words.<\/p>\n On a summer afternoon, his daughters, Gabrielle and Katerina, sit at the Sunset Marquis bar, recounting their father\u2019s remarkable life \u2014 particularly his championing of soccer and his contributions to the sport. With the World Cup now unfolding across Los Angeles, the sisters say they can\u2019t help but feel his presence. \u201cOne of his big wishes was to be here for this year\u2019s World Cup. That\u2019s why I know he\u2019s here,\u201d Gabrielle Tana says. \u201cHe was very instrumental in L.A. getting the World Cup. Our father was constantly helping connect people,\u201d says Katerina.<\/p>\n In the final years of his life, Tana became determined to tell that story, working with writers in Serbia and eventually a ghostwriter, Todd Gold, who requested no credit; the resulting memoir feels wholly told in Tana\u2019s voice. \u201cOur father, for years, was talking about how he wanted to tell his story,\u201d says Gabrielle. \u201cHe was always pinching himself about the life that he had \u2014 the stories, the adventures, and his luck.\u201d<\/p>\n Tana had an unusual path to becoming the restaurant owner of the renowned Hollywood red-sauce hideout. Born in present-day Serbia, Tana\u2019s early life was marked by political oppression under Communist rule. His father, a restaurateur, spent years as a political prisoner.<\/p>\n Gabrielle and Katerina Tana with their dad at Dan Tana\u2019s, circa 2001. <\/p>\n (Suzette Van Bylevelt)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you live in a country where political powers are constantly in play, when you own a restaurant, you\u2019re the person who\u2019s hosting somebody who\u2019s having a dangerous conversation,\u201d explains Katerina. From an early age, Dan Tana\u2019s mother made Dan promise not to end up in the restaurant business.<\/p>\n Instead, Dan Tana became a soccer star, touring Europe with Red Star Belgrade before eventually escaping to Belgium \u2014 a decision that would set him on the unbelievable path to Canada and then Los Angeles, where he would serve a stint managing a nightclub called Peppermint West and even launch a modest acting career with the help of Natalie Wood.<\/p>\n The chapters follow the restaurant\u2019s improbable success, offering extraordinary anecdotes, such as how a Yugoslavian immigrant happened to open a red-booth, comfort-food Italian restaurant. The answer? Hiring Mussolini\u2019s private chef. \u201cIt was one of two chef options that he was given by his partners: Dan Reeves and Clarence Dan Martin, who funded the soccer league. [Dan Reeves] also bought the restaurant,\u201d says Katerina.<\/p>\n Beyond dispatches from his red-and-white-checkered tablecloth joint and name-dropping, Dan Tana\u2019s memoir outlines his significant contributions to soccer. Throughout his life, he maintained deep ties to the international soccer community, supporting Red Star Belgrade long after he retired from the sport. \u201cHe became an evangelist for the game because he thought it was a game that this country would appreciate,\u201d says Katerina. \u201cFootball was always the biggest love of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n Craig Susser, left in black, has been greeting patrons at Dan Tana\u2019s for decades. <\/p>\n (Stephen Osman \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Last November, when England faced off with Serbia for the World Cup qualifying games, the stadium held a moment of silence for Dan Tana\u2019s passing. \u201cThere were people within the game who really wanted to acknowledge his contribution to the game,\u201d says Katerina.<\/p>\n \u201cA good restaurant has a good bar, and a good bar has ghosts,\u201d reads the introduction. For Dan Tana\u2019s, as far as ghosts go, they comprise a who\u2019s who of Hollywood royalty. Johnny Carson once called it his favorite restaurant. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Marilyn Monroe and other A-list stars were known to haunt the bar.<\/p>\n Even with its reputation as a watering hole for Hollywood\u2019s biggest names, Dan Tana refused to pander to celebrities. \u201cEverybody was treated the same. He never wanted the restaurant to be full of celebrities. He wanted to make sure that there were doctors, lawyers and teachers,\u201d Gabrielle says. \u201cHe was almost a democratic socialist in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n A revealing anecdote from the early pages of the book: Tana turned away Barbara Sinatra\u2019s offer to buy out the restaurant for a night for Frank Sinatra\u2019s birthday at $25,000. Tana refused. It wouldn\u2019t be fair to his regulars. Frank Sinatra never set foot in the restaurant again.<\/p>\n Sonja Perencevic and Dan Tana attend the restaurant\u2019s 50th anniversary party in Los Angeles in 2014.<\/p>\n (Alberto E. Rodriguez \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n In many ways, Tana was one of Hollywood\u2019s quiet power brokers, earning influence through humility and respect rather than status. In 1972, mysterious mafia members came into the restaurant to ask Tana to procure early-screening tickets for \u201cThe Godfather.\u201d Naturally, Tana obliged. The mafia returned to report they loved the now-classic film.<\/p>\n The proximity to the Troubadour also made the restaurant a hangout for up-and-coming names in rock music. \u201cHe fed so many of those musicians. He wouldn\u2019t charge them. These were kids that had nothing,\u201d says Gabrielle. She recounts a night when musicians from the Troubadour celebrated the end of the Vietnam War at Dan Tana\u2019s; the event went undocumented, lost to history.<\/p>\n Rock stars aside, the place is a writer\u2019s joint too. Eve Babitz \u2014 who was a close friend of 93-year-old Deanne Mencher,<\/a> who still makes the cheesecakes at Dan Tana\u2019s \u2014 was known for socializing at the restaurant. \u201cIf you got hungry, you had to walk over to Dan Tana\u2019s. Tana\u2019s was delicious and evil \u2014 all that garlic,\u201d Babitz once wrote in her semi-autobiographical novel, \u201cL.A. Woman.\u201d Screenwriters, journalists and famed L.A. writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were also known to frequent the restaurant.<\/p>\n In fact, Gabrielle and Katerina attribute the restaurant\u2019s early colossal success to a Los Angeles Times review. It was 1966, and the restaurant was struggling. Art Ryon, a columnist at The Times, happened to stop at the restaurant before a screening at the Writers Guild of America and ordered mushrooms. \u201cThe L.A. Times made the restaurant,\u201d Katerina says. \u201cThe next day there\u2019s a line around the block, and my father has no idea what happened.\u201d Tana was informed that he received a rave five-star review in The Times. Success soon followed.<\/p>\n Chicken Parmesan from Dan Tana\u2019s.<\/p>\n (Jakob Layman)<\/p>\n The next generation of Hollywood \u2014 including comedy stars like Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock \u2014 has continued the tradition. \u201cSNL\u201d cast member James Austin Johnson<\/a> expresses his fondness for the restaurant. He discovered the restaurant after hearing Ed Begley Jr. <\/a>rhapsodize about it. \u201cThe first intrigue is finding out who Dan Tana is,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cIt has a West Hollywood mystique, like Chateau Marmont \u2014 like when Hollywood, the place and the business were all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson loves restaurants that feel preserved in time. \u201cIt\u2019s the idea that you can build something right the first time and then preserve it, so that people can be a part of your good idea when it happens,\u201d says Austin Johnson.<\/p>\n Gabrielle and Katerina credit the enduring appeal of Dan Tana\u2019s to its persistent lack of pretentiousness. The atmosphere evokes a Sinatra-era simplicity. \u201cI think celebrities felt safe. They weren\u2019t photographed, and they would be left alone,\u201d says Gabrielle. The restaurant has kept its dim pink lights, which Gabrielle notes, \u201cmade everybody look good.\u201d<\/p>\n The food has also remained consistent, with large portions and comfort food. \u201cIt\u2019s not fancy, but it\u2019s the best chicken Parmesan,\u201d says Gabrielle. Over the decades, Dan Tana was approached about expanding the restaurant and opening second locations. He always refused, the restaurant\u2019s humility always mirroring the man behind it. The restaurant, which felt like an anomaly, could not be replicated. \u201cHe always said: if I knew what I did right, I would do it again,\u201d says Katerina.<\/p>\n Dan Tana\u2019s originality continues to capture the city\u2019s attention, its legacy now preserved in a memoir and carried on by its new owners, Mihajlo and Sonja Peren\u010devi\u0107, who were friends of Dan Tana. Within its pages, the reader becomes one of Dan Tana\u2019s beloved ghosts. \u201cIn a town that\u2019s always trying to be something that\u2019s not, it\u2019s not trying to be anything,\u201d says Katerina. \u201cDan Tana\u2019s is longevity in the midst of ephemera.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Gabrielle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784026832_797_.jpeg\")
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