We had been shopping at Glendale Galleria, and, with half an hour till our 6 pm reservation, we directed our feet in the restaurant’s direction and continued our leisurely chat + stroll. There are few neighborhoods left in LA where I feel safe strolling around in anymore, but this part of Glendale is one of them (for now). According to Google Maps, it should’ve been a 12-minute walk from the mall, but while we were still expecting to walk another block at least, we looked up and there it was—its many lights flooding the otherwise nondescript street. Our eyes had been naturally drawn to it because of how bright the venue was in contrast to its surroundings. The Atrium is a very well-lighted restaurant, which is certainly preferable to those dimly lit places where you can hardly even see what you’re putting into your mouth; and yet, there was something slightly off about the lighting that I couldn’t put my finger that evening, but which subsequently occurred to me was the preponderance of white lighting. Never really thought of this before, but I guess I associate fine dining with more yellow lighting, whereas I would expect a fast food place to use white lighting. Not a huge deal, of course; overall, the restaurant is comfortable. For me, seat softness is always a prime concern due to a misshapen tailbone that makes it excruciating for me to sit on certain chairs, like those wooden, unupholstered ones they have at some places. Some degree of pain will be there no matter what kind of chair I’m in—discomfort has become the incessant white noise of my life—but that pain level can be downgraded or exacerbated depending on whether a seat can ergonomically cradle my butt. This might seem like TMI, but I anticipate making, in future reviews as well as this, comments about how comfortable or uncomfortable the chairs are, and such commentary might be baffling without knowing this fact about me (by the way, in a mad world in which some blogs are being generated by AI, this is how you know for sure that what you’re reading right now was written by an actual human being. Have you ever heard of a chatbot that bitches and moans about tailbone pain?). I knew from my pre-visit research (looked for photos online) that the chairs and benches at the Atrium are upholstered, and they were okay. I appreciated the spacing between the tables, which was reasonable; at no point did I suspect that our neighbors’ spit was getting onto our food when they spoke because their table was placed too tightly adjacent to ours.  

The Ladies’ Room (hey, let’s face it; condition of the restrooms are a major aspect of the overall dining out experience) was clean, but insufficient in its number of stalls (only two) and sinks (only ONE; like, hello? For a popular restaurant of this size?).