Beverly Hills B & G Outlaws Stuffiness

When the Rangoon Racquet Club changed ownership a year ago, the new owners renovated the place and took some old favorites off the menu, including the cheese toast, the cold peanut soup and the much-loved chili. Now the name has been removed too. Scott Kimball, who recently bought out his partner, Jerry Prendergast, has changed the name to Beverly Hills Bar & Grill.

“We’ve metamorphosed,” says Kimball, a former catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. “The attitude started to get stuffy and the employees were not happy. My partner wanted a New York-style restaurant where a side of rice costs $5.50. I wanted the place to be a neighborhood bar and grill . . . a ‘Cheers’ of Beverly Hills. So I said, ‘Either you go or I go.’ ”

Prendergast left; Kimball changed the menu. He tripled the number of salads, doubled the number of appetizers, added pasta dishes, and subtracted from the prices. Now he’s come up with this deal: Buy one entree and the second is only $1. However, there are hitches: You must ask for the $1 dinner when you make a reservation, and you must eat before 7:30.

“It’s a real fun place to be now,” Kimball says. “We’re not pretentious here. If you want that, there are plenty of places in Beverly Hills that will serve that purpose.”

MORE MORPHEUSIZING: Meanwhile, Prendergast has gone on to take over the operation of Cafe Morpheus (formerly Asylum), while owner John Thomas occupies his time designing furniture.The noisy Beverly Hills bistro will remain unchanged. Not so the very private back room, Asylum: In two weeks it will open to the public Thursday through Sunday with a separate phone number, a separate menu and a separate entrance. “It will be a quieter, jazz/piano restaurant,” Prendergast says. “A kind of place where people don’t feel bad about coming in a tux or jeans and a sweater.”

THE LAST GALLOP?: Robert Gadsby was sous-chef at Checkers Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, opening chef at Xiomara in Pasadena, interim chef at Santa Monica’s World Cafe and opening chef at Pyramid on La Cienega Boulevard’s Restaurant Row . . . all in one year. Since his departure from Pyramid, the galloping Gadsby has been quietly cooking at Olive, with chef Fred Eric. Now Eric and Gadsby have left the Fairfax Avenue restaurant and bought a restaurant in the Los Feliz area.

“Fred knew about my reputation so he insisted we work together first,” says Gadsby. “We’ve been working for some while, and through trial and error I’ve learned a lot. We understand each other’s inadequacies, and we have the same goals.”

After minor renovations, The Restaurant (that’s really its name), is scheduled to open in August. Eric, who once cooked at the club Flaming Colossus, says they want to cook happy food. “A lot of the main guys are doing five restaurants at once. We only want one. We want to be the Chez Panisse of L.A.”

FAMILY AFFAIR: “As much as father has tried to keep us out of the business,” says James Beriker, “it’s in our blood.” So James and his brother John, who have been operating a catering business for two years, have taken over 435 North in Beverly Hills. In mid-August, the brothers will open Rustica, a California-Italian cafe. Their other brother, Timur, will also work at the restaurant. Their father, Kermin, is CEO of the Beverly Hills Hotel and president elect of the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce.

James Beriker says they want their bistro to be very, very European. “We believe in food and in a certain level of service. The emphasis here has been on liquor sales. We want to do food.”

TOOLIN’ AROUND: While Sonora Cafe’s patio is under construction, servers at the downtown restaurant will wear hardhats and offer Harvey Wallbangers, Screwdrivers and Rusty Nails for $2.