You walk in and it's like the end of result of a time machine. It's the San Fernando Valley, 1960s, 1970s, maybe. Families and friends are gathered around tables while the three main staff--two mainstay waitresses and the cook, Rudy--rush around serving everyone's bellies to a greasy satisfaction. It's breakfast. It's America's suburb. Joyce's is a classic old-school Northridge coffee shop on Reseda Blvd. Here's what we saw and ate.......

Yesterday afternoon, LAPD SWAT stormed a house in Reseda believed to be where a 24-year-old man was being held for ransom. The man was rescued with non life-threatening injuries and seven men and one woman were arrested at the home on 18300 block of Schoolcraft Street near Etiwanda Avenue. It started at 7:00 p.m. on Monday evening when the man called his mother saying he had been kidnapped and money was being demanded. The family......

Photo by yunny via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr The recent heatwave was expected to transition to cooler temperatures beginning last Saturday, but there was no such luck, forcing weather forecasters to say today would be that day as the Valley would get a much needed marine layer (as of 8:30 a.m., skies are blue here in the Valley). If correct, instead of triple digits that became the norm the past four days, parts......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/BBC_Buys_Marijuana_in_LA_This_place_is_like_Amsterdam'; BBC News Correspondent David Willis wanted to see how hard or easy it was to get a medical marijuana prescription in California. He went to a clinic in the San Fernando Valley of the city and the only medical condition he could think of was how he gets anxious. Soon, the doctor appeared - a softly-spoken Vietnamese man who introduced himself as Dr Do. He wore a white lab coat and......

There is a damn good line up of bands happening this Friday night over in Glendale at The Scene at 9:00 p.m. And despite the Valley club's interesting change in direction with membership, this Friday is still the spirit of the old scene as it is the second-to-last show booked under old management. Friday's line up includes Death to Anders, Fol Chen, Solar Powered People and Layer with the Squaregirls will be DJing between sets.......

A view of the Valley from Sherman Oaks | Photo by Dan Wuh via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Hear that sound? That's not a jetliner landing at Van Nuys Airport. Those are moans and groans about the impending new area code overlay in the San Fernando Valley. A March 24 judicial decision recommended that the 747 overlay, which would require Valley residents to dial 1 plus the area code within the......

Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DID U C OPRAH 2DAY? OMG SO GR8! OOPS G2G, PPL R B-TING SUM GUY UP TTYL! Pasadena ain't your ashtray. So tonight their city council meets to vote on a massive smoking ban that will prohibit puffers to indulge in their habit in almost any public place. Hey, what's the latest on the upcoming SAG/AFTRA contract talks? Deadline Hollywood Daily has an......

Yesterday, hundreds of Valley residents headed towards their front and backyard lawns, picking orange and grapefruit trees, lemon bushes and other juicy fruits in name of one of the largest single-day community food donation drives in the city. Around 20,000 pounds of citrus was gathered at Citrus Sunday, a project run by Councilman Greig Smith who represents the 12th district. Residents drop off the fruit to various Valley fire stations and it all ends up......

Photo by DRB62 via Flickr Two female bank employees, ages 41 and 39, were transported to Northridge Hospital in stable condition after they were exposed to a $100 bill at San Fernando Valley Washington Mutual this afternoon. The incident, which took place at 10370 Mason Ave. in Chatsworth, happened around 1:00 p.m. The Los Angeles Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Squad were deployed after one teller complained that her hand was burning after touching the......

An alert coming out of the Los Angeles Fire Department states that Canoga Park Senior High School has been "actively evacuated." It is unknown at this time if it is a partial or full evacuation, but the Haz Mat Team was deployed to the campus. Initially a strong odor was coming from a classroom where there were reports of several people feeling sick, but incident was downgraded nearly a half hour later when it ended......

Red marks the NoHo Streetcar path. Blue marks an idea for a Moorpark Streetcar idea. After a September 2007 LAist post about an idea of putting a streetcar in the NoHo Arts District, it grabbed first-year UCLA student Nguyen Doan's attention. "It really got me to thinking about how useful a streetcar system would be and motivated me to do research on the subject." When Doan was presented with a class assignment instructing students......

Pinkberry, CeFiore, Red Mango, Lime Light, etc., etc., etc., have nothing on Menchie's Frozen Yogurt in Valley Village off Laurel Canyon between Magnolia and Chandler. At Menchie's, there's not just two flavors, there's ten. At Menchie's, you don't get served, you serve yourself. At Menchie's, there's not just a handful of toppings, there's more than thirty-five. Ranging from chocolate to cake batter to fruit flavors, the Valley yogurt shop let's you serve yourself, pay by......

Update 7:00 p.m.: Sepulveda is still shut down and now crews expect to open it around 9 p.m. tonight. Update 5:11 p.m.: "Crews Hope to Clean up Sepulveda Landslide by 5:30pm Rush Hour" says Fox 11 News. Update 4:04 p.m.: Power has been restored to all effected except 700 residential customers in Brentwood and Bel Air. Update 11:14 a.m.: This morning's landslide even caused power to go out at the Getty Center. Luckily, power in......

Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

My first memory of Dutton's is of the one in the valley, hot on those unairconditioned summer afternoons, the faintly sour smell of the paper. It was crowded, a little uncomfortable, and yet it was a place that was full of treasures. A place where a kid could wander -- completely by accident, into the Literature section and discover something magical. After my family moved to the Westside in the early nineties, Dutton's became a......

UPDATE, 8:50 A.M.: One suspect has now been arrested and the LAPD says the man who was shot and killed last night by officers was apparently holding a camera tripod according to the LA Times. This is all sounding eerily similar to last week's Glassell Park shooting. Last night before 7:00 p.m., a Van Nuys LAPD division unit stopped a car. Then things went wrong says the Daily News: Two officers from the violent crime......

To have a continuous bike path along the LA River, it must pass next to Universal Studios. The maroon line marks the disputed path. Back in an October 2006 interview with the mysterious LA City Nerd, we asked a question of hope: when can we realistically bike commute via the LA River Trail from the Valley to Downtown LA? The nerd was not optimistic saying that "the LA River trail may never connect completely......

This apartment complex next to the NoHo Metro Red Line was rumored to have many gang-related police calls when it opened | Photo by lavocado@sbcglobal.net via Flickr So that's why cops were all over the Valley this morning. The Daily News is reporting that around 200 cops raided 15 homes, arresting 16, in an early morning operation called "Wild Card" which is "the police department's effort to challenge a particularly active and violent clique......

Photo of the March 3rd, 2007 total lunar eclipse by Mr. Last Minute via Flickr Look up! Whether it's a plane, a bird or Superman, the sky is clearing up. And that means earlier fears of tonight's 7:01 p.m. total Lunar Eclipse viewing being blocked by clouds in Los Angeles can go wayside (Update: the moment we published this, the Valley started to get hit by cloud cover, but it seems on and off,......

Photo of Jeff Koons' 'Tulips' at BCAM by pink_fish13 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr As reported this morning, the body of a dead woman was left in a van with the windows down in a spot reserved for police in Pomona. The police told the owners of the car to pick it up or it would be towed. Oops. Now, SFist is reporting a similar case where police impounded a van......

Near the Studio City-Sherman Oaks border on Moorpark Street at Longridge near Fulton is a new spacious and clean contemporary feeling coffeehouse. M Street Coffee opened about a month ago serving the regular fare of espresso, macchiato, americano, cappucino, and chai teas. Eco and vegan friendly, they have organic frappes, soy and organic milks and fruit smoothies with raw vitamin complex add-ons. All are served in eco-friendly containers. According to a Chowhound review, Gene Liebenau,......

Vegan Waffles and 'Chicken' | All Photos by Zach Behrens/LAist All good things come from the Valley first. Lucky for those who stay "over the hill," Executive Chef David Anderson at LA's fanciest and tastiest vegan affair in the Tarzana Safari Walk (yes, that's an official Los Angeles Neighborhood, city blue sign and all), there is plans to open up a new vegan eatery with full bar on the Westside according to VegNews, who......

Photo by Tom Andrews via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The LA Times has the latest and more details on the deadly stand-off in the Valley that left one SWAT team member, Randal Simmons, and four others dead. Okay, this is just terribly, terribly, terribly wrong: why is the city cracking down so hard on street vendors who sell bacon wrapped hot dogs? Police continue to search for three kidnappers who abducted......

The Santa Clarita Valley region has always been rumoured to have been inhabited by Bigfoot, but what was encountered in the Fall of 1974 was bizarre to say the least, and unlike any typical Bigfoot sighting. Several teenage boys had experiences they would never forget. In October two teenagers in the area observed a tall, muscular creature covered in hair which was carrying a dead pig through the undergrowth. Although they were naturally shocked to......

In Sunday's wee hours, an unusual car chase took place on our local freeways, between the LA County Sheriff and a Vons big rig. According to the San Jose Mercury News:Officials say the hourlong pursuit began when LA County Sheriff's deputies responded to a report that a big rig was weaving. Sheriff's Sergeant Dan Raimo says the driver failed to yield and headed onto Highway 101. The big rig eventually stopped near Cerritos and......

'Santa Monica Subway: Alternative 4' is one of the 17 routes presented by Metro Last night, a packed room of community members at LACMA listened attentively to Metro present nineteen options to serve the Westside. This first in a series of three public input meetings (two more meetings next week) was exciting -- wheels are in motion to get Los Angeles moving, even if that reality be around ten years from now. One of......

Meg Wallace as Catherine in Standing on my Knees Back when I was taking acting classes in the Valley, I had a classmate who wasn’t that talented, but was nevertheless very taken with his own ability. One day, I looked into his car and saw that it was a complete disaster area in the backseat. When I commented on the mess, he shot back, “It’s not messy – it’s artistic.” While the line between......

Tonight's the first show of undergrounDNUOS, which is a nonprofit night of collaboration and experimentation put on by Amoeba Music and its employees as a labor of love. " It is a monthly series set at various underground spaces, art galleries, warehouses, and strange bars embracing the concepts of improvisation in any genre and any sound... it is designed to be a space for people to step outside of what they normally do and......

Here at LAist, we really love local folk music, especially The Hollow Trees. In fact, we love them so much that we've interviewed them three times: a little ">over a year ago, then in May about Stagecoach (the roots version of Coachella) and this last December. We'll spare any in depth analysis this morning, but will just say if you're looking for things to do late this morning, whether your a parent or babysitting some......

Two fairly large, but non-deadly crashes in the Valley, first on the southbound 405 in Sherman Oaks, ">then on the westbound 101 in Tarzana, snarled morning commuters today. Needless to say, traffic backed up to the 101/405 interchange which is the busiest freeway interchange in the United States. This brings up the question: where are the alternative options to traverse the 8.5 mile Sepulveda Pass between the Valley and metropolitan Los Angeles? There are currently......