Emiliano's Mexican Restaurant & Bar, South Side

Grade: C-

Superficial decorative flourishes disguise an otherwise pedestrian - even somewhat rundown - restroom. One of the sinks has no water pressure to speak of, but the other is quite powerful and offers good water temperature. The wall paint has seen better days. The biggest issue is that the door takes a very long time to swing shut, leaving the back of the person at the urinal exposed to the restaurant for a significant amount of time.

Also: this is a (quite good) Mexican restaurant. What's with the Miller Lite poster?

Coral Beach Cantina

Ste 310, 29350 Pacific Coast Hwy , Malibu, CA 90265-3970
Grade: A-


Coral Beach Cantina features a small yet comfortable and decorative men's room. There is little in the way of above-average convenience features, but it does include toilet seat covers and appears to be kept extremely clean. The pedestal sink and wood/metal mirror frame are nice.

Sonoma Wine Garden

395 Santa Monica Place, Santa Monica, CA 90401
Grade: A+

Places to Do Business had the pleasure of traveling to Los Angeles last week, and my posts for the next week or so will cover the various men's rooms - and one unisex restroom - that I came across. In general I found many of the facilities to be quite nice, though it is true that we mostly only visited nice establishments (it being a vacation and all).

Sonoma Wine Garden in Santa Monica has a fantastically decorated men's room. In keeping with the restaurant's theme, the floor-to-ceiling wallpaper displays a wide variety of wine bottle labels. The sliding door includes a fun illustration with directions on how to lock it, just in case a rube such as myself finds themselves very confused by the non-traditional setup. The toilet automatically flushes, and the urinal is of the water-free design that I encountered almost everywhere in Los Angeles.

Perhaps my favorite part of this restroom, though, is the layout. While some might find the sink placement awkward (outside of the restrooms themselves and directly in between the men's and women's rooms, so that men and women share the two sinks), I find that this is a great way of keeping people honest when it comes to washing their hands. Everyone will know if you do not wash your hands, as you will simply exit the bathroom and walk right past the sinks. This is not just great for appearance's sake, but for helping to stop the spread of germs and bacteria in general.

Plus, the sinks - and the sink area in general - are beautiful.

Papa Gallo Mexican Restaurant

205 West Genesee Street, Fayetteville, NY 13066
Grade: A

First of all, my apologies for being away for so long. I was on vacation last week and am preparing for a big move in the next two weeks, so it's going to be hard to keep up with posting for a bit. I will certainly try, though.

Here's one I've had on deck since several weeks ago. Papa Gallo's men's room pulls off its Mexican-themed decor very well, especially with its wooden cabinet and backsplash. The sink basin and faucet are very nice, as are the wall tiles, mirror frame and light fixtures. There is nothing particularly special in terms of convenience - pretty much everything is manually operated - but it's a pleasant atmosphere nonetheless.

Also, the time-release air freshener is definitely working overtime. While I was taking a picture of the sink, it somehow managed to spray me directly in my eye.

Wendy's, Erie, PA

5902 Wattsburg Road, Erie, PA 16509-4034
Grade: C-


No surprises here. This Wendy's off of Interstate 90 features a very standard men's room. The facilities are a little on the dirty side, the hand dryer offers very weak performance and the toilet paper dispenser is a bit of a reach from the toilet itself. Not much more to say, really.

Burgatory

936 Freeport Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238
Grade: B+

If you don't mind waiting 2 hours on a weekend night, Burgatory is an excellent spot to partake in the eating of creative/customizable burgers (mine was organic beef on focaccia with chipotle sour cream and avocado... right??), washed down with a cucumber/rosemary gin and tonic or alcoholic milkshake.

If you don't mind navigating the establishment's inexplicably slick floor through a thick crowd of people, you may even have a chance to visit their perfectly decent men's room. The facilities are decorated in a somewhat industrial fashion, with gray floor and wall tiles and a light fixture that seems as though it is made of iron pipe fittings. The glass/stone mosaic liner tiles on the wall are a very nice touch, as is the above-counter sink. The only real drawbacks here are the lack of a hand dryer and a proper, built-in soap dispenser.

There is something I would like to mention, though it is somewhat embarrassing. This goes without saying, but the usual labeling system for men's and women's restrooms is "Men" and "Women." Certain establishments do tend to get cute with this sometimes (take the Rex Theater, which instead uses images of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe to differentiate between its bathrooms), but generally it is spelled out and pretty clear. With Burgatory, though, I almost walked straight into the women's room. Their restrooms are marked with "B" and "G," which in retrospect quite obviously means boys and girls. Myself, having just imbibed one of these aforementioned cucumber/rosemary gin and tonics, first saw the "G" and took it to mean "guys" (the women's room is at the end of the corridor and is the first that is immediately visible, with the men's room only coming into sight as you move further into the corridor).

Don't ask me why I thought this; wouldn't one restroom being labeled "guys" mean that the other would most likely be labeled "gals," hence leading to great confusion in their abbreviated forms? Still, I did not immediately find the "B" and "G" to be sufficient in pointing out which restroom was which, especially when the "G" was the first thing I saw.

Anyway. I'm not sure the point I'm trying to make here. Maybe some readers will see where I am coming from, and maybe others will think I am completely daft.

Also -- if the pictures below are somewhat underwhelming, it's only because my phone is horrible at taking photos in low-light situations. And to say that the restroom is a "low-light situation" is not a bad thing; it is a pleasant dimness.

Park Bruges

5801 Bryant St., Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Grade: A

While at first glance I found Park Bruges' men's room disappointingly plain, a closer inspection revealed beauty in the subtle details. The white-on-white color scheme is somewhat generic, but the restroom's decorative touches -- the light fixture above the mirror, the trim where the wall tile meets the painted wall, the modern urinal and top-mounted sink designs --  offer a classy appearance nonetheless. The facilities are clean and temperate, and the soft lighting (from the fixture above the mirror, as well as from recessed bulbs in the drop ceiling) lends a comfortable ambience. And then there is, of course, the Xlerator hand dryer, otherwise known as the greatest invention of all time.

The one slight drawback was the roll of toilet paper sitting on the back of the toilet, though that might have been a way to get around the somewhat frustrating toilet paper dispenser (detailed here).