Fast Food, Real Flavor and Fun, Too

You might call it gold-plated fast food. Or maybe quick cuisine. Perhaps they should put platinum arches out in front. The newest restaurant in Beverly Hills is serving cheeseburgers and French fries, but these speedy meals have taken a new twist--they actually taste good.

The Acme Grill (130 S. Beverly Drive, (213) 274-5844) is serving fat burgers with a faint tang of charcoal. Its malts are made with real milk and its lemonade is neither too sweet nor too yellow. Even the pickles taste good. It’s all served in a colorfully kicky atmosphere that is one part nostalgia, one part high tech and two parts high good humor.

And when they say fast, they mean it. A friend and I managed to order a burger ($4.65), a malt, a lemonade and a tuna sandwich, grab a brownie to go (disappointing), pay for it, eat it, and get out the door before the 20 minutes on our parking meter had run out. I can’t wait to dash back for breakfast.