EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 19, 2020 Page 3
El Gringo Treats the
South Bay Like Family
Story and Photos by Chase Maser
Over the past few months, restaurants
throughout El Segundo have had to make
(and are still adjusting to) numerous changes
set up by the city of Los Angeles to curb
the spread of COVID-19. Sprawling into the
road are new outdoor seating arrangements.
Orange barriers separate customers from
ongoing traffic. New partitions made out of
fiberglass offer privacy and protection for
parties sitting 6ft apart. No eatery has been
able to escape the fray. However, one venue
looks oddly familiar despite the changing
landscape: El Gringo.
Located at 422 Main St., El Gringo is the
newest location of the Mexican restaurant
chain spread throughout the South Bay. They
have locations in Manhattan Beach, Redondo
Beach, and Hermosa, but the ES location is
only four years old, celebrating their recent
anniversary last Nov 2nd.
Something else that’s unique about the
ES location is its management team—sisters
Sadie and Whitney Fraker. Under the
leadership of El Gringo owner, Bill Graw,
the Fraker sisters have been working for El
Gringo restaurants over the past ten years,
starting in their late teens and rising through
the ranks of the different locations.
“We definitely started at the bottom,”
says Sadie, who is now the manager of the
ES location. “I worked my way up from a
busser to a window/takeout position, and
over the years, I’ve shifted to a server and
then manager.”
For Whitney, it was a similar rise, and
now, she is the manager of the Manhattan
location, although every Thursday and
Sunday, the sisters get to work together in
ES. Right away, you would think that being
so close with your sibling 24/7 would get
overwhelming, but the Frakers love the time
they get to spend with each other—they also
love the environment they work in.
“It’s rare to be treated so well by an
employer,” says Whitney. “[Bill] is very attentive
and anticipates a lot of changes before
they happen. So working for El Gringo has
always been comfortable and fun. It’s to the
point now where Sadie and I love working
together more, and having Bill as a mentor
makes us feel like we could open up our
own restaurant someday.”
Weathering the storm of COVID-19 has
really been a great example of El Gringo’s
resiliency. Looking at the ES location from
the outside, you would never guess that
the business has had to endure any drastic
changes. Their sidewalk remains unobstructed
with tables and chairs. There are no orange
barricades or wooden posts with makeshift
decorations strewn about. Even walking by
on a regular weeknight, you can look inside
and see couples sitting in their own booths,
cozy and enjoying themselves with a sense
of normalcy—it’s all thanks to El Gringo’s
current layout and business model.
“I think one of the reasons why we’ve
been able to remain successful through the
pandemic is because we make takeout a
priority,” says Whitney. “Our Manhattan
and Redondo branches are mostly takeout
already, so that approach has always been
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Entertainment
Film Review
The Climb is a Blissfully
Deadpan Buddy Comedy
By Ryan Rojas for cinemacy.com
I didn’t know what type of film I was
getting myself into when queueing up The
Climb, the newest release from Sony Pictures
Classics. Judging by the key art, I thought
it was going to be a buddy-comedy about
cyclist friends who exchange witty, occasionally
profound musings about life captured
along lovely vistas.
In the best way possible, The Climb is
not that film. It’s arguably the funniest, and
one of my very favorite, films of the year.
The title of the film doesn’t exactly relay
what this movie is about, although it is
accurate in what happens: two buddies move
through adult life in a Sisyphean manner.
It’s a deadpan buddy comedy that dips
into the surreal and absurd, with real filmmaking
finesse.
The Climb tells the story of these two
friends–Kyle (Kyle Marvin) and Michael
(Michael Angelo Covino)–whose relationship
can at best be described as toxic. They undermine
each other’s lives in fully conscious
ways. As the film opens, Kyle gets engaged
and Michael confesses to having slept with
his fianceé. Some time and another engagement
later, the friends find themselves in
similar territory.
And yet what The Climb shows is that
they have a bond so unquestioned, like
toddlers, that their terrible behavior is seen
as earnest and sorrowful. And it’s exacted
with meta-awareness, adding to their deadpan,
dopey charisma, which makes their
low-wattage reaction and reconciling of life
events hilarious. To make matters funnier,
this pares with moments where the film
glides into the absurd, where impromptu
musical sequences surprised me with such
delight. As the film went on (it’s broken
up into chapters), I continued to enjoy this
movie, and couldn’t wait to recommend it
to my friends.
And while The Climb stars two dim-witted
dudes, it’s also a movie made with real cinematic
skills, pulled off behind the camera
by the very dudes in front of it. Michael
Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin also wrote
and produced the film, with the former getting
director credit.
While The Climb is my exact type of
comedy–deadpan and dipping into the surreal–
it’s also a comedy that has real cinematic
skills: most of the film is comprised of incredibly
directed single-take sequences of slowly
unfolding scenes (that give off a measured
pace and sense of calm that runs counter to
the unexpected comedy that arises).
More so than The Climb being just a hilarious
film and one of my favorite releases
of the year, it’s also the arrival of a new
comedic duo that I can’t wait to see what
they do next.
98 min. ‘The Climb’ is rated R for language,
sexual content, some nudity, and brief
drug use. Now playing in Los Angeles at the
Vineland Drive-In. •
The Climb, courtesy Sony Pictures Classics
The front of El Gringo’s El Segundo Location at 422 Main St.
Ryan Rojas.
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See El Gringo, page 8