Gary Baseman fills iconic L.A. coffee shop with charming drawings on real restaurant menus

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Minutes before the opening of his latest show, artist Gary Baseman, dressed as a retro diner cook, in a red-orange jumpsuit, white apron and hat, paced around Johnie’s Coffee Shop, moving art frames from one counter to another and adjusting the position of a cartoon cat plush toy.The exhibition, “Off the Menu,” located inside the long-shuttered diner on Wilshire and Fairfax, is Baseman’s first hometown solo show in more than a decade.Featuring about 40 colored pencil drawings — mostly on real menus from L.A.restaurants — the whimsical show is a love letter to his Fairfax neighborhood.

It launched Friday in conjunction with the opening of the Wilshire and Fairfax subway station and is set to run through June 14.Entertainment & Arts L.A.

Metro’s three new D Line extension stations will feature nine public artworks.The artists include Eamon Ore-Giron, Fran Siegel, Karl Haendel and Todd Gray.“[Fairfax District] was a special place,” he said during a phone interview Thursday.

His mother worked at Canter’s Deli down the street from Johnie’s.“This is where the Hasidic Jews and the punks lived side by side together in harmony.”The show, a celebration of L.A.’s dining culture, features drawings in Baseman’s signature “dream reality” style that blends real-life surroundings — his dining companions included — with mythical creatures from his universe and fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White.

Featured restaurants include classic establishments Musso & Frank, Canter’s Deli and Genghis Cohen, as well as relative newcomers like Jon & Vinny’s, Coucou and Max & Helen’s.The lion’s share of his menu drawings were completed in the two to three hours that he spent enjoying his meal and conversing with his dining companions.

He occasionally challenges himself by limiting his color palette.Restricting his color choic...