The New Plate Tectonics

What convinced him: He didn't dine alone.

"All the restaurants were anywhere from a half to 90% full," said Spivak, chief executive of Grill Concepts Inc., the owner of Grill on the Alley and Daily Grill eateries in downtown locations including San Francisco, Chicago and Washington. "It just seemed like downtown finally had come alive as a destination restaurant spot."

That emboldened the Brentwood-based company to commit to opening a Daily Grill in the new Pegasus apartments at 6th and Flower streets in May, when it will join a growing number of chain operators setting up shop downtown.

The Daily Grill will be a few blocks from a new IHOP and from the site of a future Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. Meanwhile, the Seattle-based operators of El Gaucho steakhouses are nosing around for a location. And more chains are expected to be enticed as plans proceed for a $1-billion addition to Staples Center that is envisioned as a 4-million-square-foot entertainment, shopping and residential center.

"We're in discussions with up to a dozen well-known restaurants," said Michael Roth, a spokesman for the developer, AEG, the entertainment and development unit of Anschutz Corp.

Mid-priced restaurants such as the Daily Grill and IHOP are viewed as crucial to the rebirth of downtown Los Angeles as a residential neighborhood.

"The more people you have moving into a downtown area, the more attractive it becomes for dining and entertainment uses -- and that makes it attractive for more residential development," said Michael Beyard, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington.

Already, the urban pioneers who have taken up residence or are on their way (by one count, about 10,000 residential units are under development) are changing the dining scene in the central business district.

For years, it was dominated by expensive boutique eateries and inexpensive fast-food outlets, with precious little in the middle. Carol E. Schatz, president of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, said that had to change for urban living to really work.

"One of the successful ingredients to activating the street and providing amenities to our new residents is mid-range restaurants," she said. "We have actively solicited certain chains to come downtown, and obviously developers