The restaurant itself is pretty cool, with high vaulted ceilings and a warm cozy feel. If you’d never been in a French restaurant before, and your whole idea of the French is based on stereotypes (sorry people, stereotypes are still alive and well), you wouldn’t expect the restaurant to be at all like it is. Should you go, don’t feel that you have to dress to the nines, there were people in there dressed in football jerseys and flip flops (mostly us—but in all seriousness, it’s laid-back enough that no one stresses it much…and  the staff is welcoming either way).

Onto the bathroom…it’s dark and very relaxing. It’s nicely appointed, with dark tiles, dark wood around the mirrors, and a very cool wave sink. I think between Mercedes-Benz of Rocklin and La Provence, I’m gonna have to redo the sinks in my house. When I get the cajonés to do it, I’ll take pictures and put em up. Aw come on, who am I kidding…I couldn’t put in sinks to save my life! So I have to give this one four out of five rolls…it would get three-and-a-half for being an above-average bathroom and being clean, but I have to give half a roll for just that sink.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

You’ll see in the entrance shot (picture one) and the fourth picture they have a divider/partition in the bathroom. I’m not really sure why, this is a one-user bathroom with a lock on the door…I suppose if someone manages to get the lock undone it gives the poor sap on the toilet a chance to scream out “Wait! Someone’s in here!” without being too embarassed. Of course, you’d think the other guy wouldn’t have any issues with embarassment if it comes to picking a bathroom lock…

The car magazines in picture five and the painting in pictures one and six are a nice touch and keep in-sync with the fact that this is, after all, a body shop. I love to read while in the bathroom as much as the next guy, but I’m not really sure about public bathroom magazines (frankly, that’s what my Instinct is for…catching up on news—and of course taking pictures—while in the bathroom). Shared public bathroom magazines…that’s just wrong. Three stars for an average clean bathroom that’s got a few nice touches. I’ll add half a roll as a bonus for the partition; it makes me smile.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is a really crazy bathroom. I was all ready to give it four rolls from the get-go, but doing all these bathroom reviews has really lead me to be far more detailed in my reviews. I get way behind pretty consistently, as you can see if you read through the reviews…every five or six days I drop a content nuke and put that last 6 days’ worth of content in one or two days. I’m really working on improving my timing…but it hasn’t seemed to have an effect yet. Way to get off-topic…

Like I mentioned, this bathroom is pretty cool (I think I said “crazy”…but when you’re me, there’s no difference—how would you know that though? you’re not me…I’m pretty sure anyway…) The walls are covered in a brown textured wallpaper that looks like leather grain. They put clear yellowish stones in designs, and even put a clock in (really helpful when you forget your cell and have people waiting for you). Seriously, more bathrooms should have clocks in them. Some of the stones broke off (came unglued?) and haven’t been repaired yet (I’m not sure how long, maybe someone stole some of the stones?). Overall, the intelligent and cool design and overall cleanliness give this bathroom four rolls. However, I have to deduct half a roll for the unrepaired missing stones (it just looks bad).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The bathroom is clean, cool (temperature-wise), and smells great (often overlooked and so very important when it comes to bathrooms…). You can see, in the first (entrance) picture, the air freshener near the mirror. If you’re wondering what’s the deal with picture number four, I found it interesting that 1) there had previously been at least one other soap dispenser, and 2) the soap dispenser is closer to the toilet than the sink (not that it takes a ton more energy or effort to wash your hands with the soap dispenser being further from the sink, it’s just odd). Anyway, bathroom is clean and smells good, it gets three rolls.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Alright, so enough gushing about the coffee house, time to gush about the bathroom. Take a look at the pictures, they decorate with paintings, ornate mirrors, there’s a steamer trunk in there (I’ll get some more pictures next time I go in…someone was practically breaking down the door this morning so I didn’t have time to finish photographing). It’s a little on the dark side and my Instinct has no flash, so some of the pictures aren’t great (are they ever?). All told, someone actually put some time into the design here. I’ll give them my first four-and-a-half rating…this bathroom is cozy, warm, inviting, and well thought-out without being over-the-top or cluttered.

(edit 9/29/09: added pictures four through six)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

If you’ve already seen the pictures, you’re probably wondering “What’s the deal with picture number four?!?” or “Why would he post that?”—fear not, I briefly entertained the same thoughts. Then…enlightenment…I re-read the brand of toilet seat cover dispenser…and started laughing again. Puns may suck, and puns as brand names might not work so great, but if you make toilet seat cover holders what are you gonna do? Can you imagine the group naming sessions for toilet seat cover dispensers? “Rest Assured” seems like a much better idea than anything I would come up with (I don’t think you could print—or sell—anything I’d come up with). The bathroom is decorated in tans and browns (with blue notices in-line with the Lowe’s brand), and they have two kidney-shaped sinks that I think are pretty cool…complete with sensors for saving water. For a clean bathroom with a few cool aspects, I give ‘em three-and-a-half rolls.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Anyway…I really wanted to give this bathroom three-and-a-half or maybe even four rolls. I really like their treatment of the bathroom (despite the fact that you have to go outside and around back) as another area to decorate interestingly. They do a good job keeping it clean, too…even including a Wallflower® to keep the bathroom consistently smelling better (they really do work…I use ‘em at home all the time for a nice even clean smell). The plant and paintings (in pictures four and five) also really improve the overall feel of the bathroom, and make it seem much more homey (yep, I have plants in my bathrooms). Then we get to picture six…where things fall apart a little. You’ll notice the toilet cover on the floor in picture two…the complex flushing system didn’t work right (remember the good ol’ days of simple valve toilets?), so in order to flush, one has to press down on the white plunger in the center of the tank. For the working-but-not system I have to deduct half a roll; I’ll go back again and review at some point, and if they’ve fixed it I’ll adjust accordingly.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The bathroom was clean and well-kept (on a side note, the whole restaurant was), with light brown floors and white walls. As you can tell from the second picture, someone couldn’t figure out how to throw away paper towels, but if that’s the worse you can say about a bathroom that’s pretty good. It’s a spacious one-user-at-a-time bathroom. Overall, the bathroom gets three rolls.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

They managed to make this a little bit more interesting than your average white-walled bathroom, utilizing gray tiles to break up the solid white. I found their light “switch” interesting, seems old-fashioned compared to the  modern-day sensors, but it’s obviously better than leaving the lights on all-day long. I’m always interested in what their savings over a standard light switch is (I’m sure it’s substantial), and the actual value (in terms of how long it takes to recuperate the cost of a light-sensor compared to the cost of the different types of switches). Anyway, enough rambling…three-and-a-half rolls on cleanliness and avoiding blasé design (it’s a gas station…) with no idea of how busy they get.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This bathroom is done in warm earth-tones and the light is on the dim side (but not terrible). I suspect they’re conserving energy because I’ve seen more and more restrooms “going dark.”

So I’m not sure what the deal was but I ended up using both the stall and the urinal yesterday. I tried to get a picture of the one stall I didn’t use since it was pretty bad…but the stall was too dark for me to get a picture without using a flash, and I would have had to censor it (in all reality, it’s probably a good thing it was a dimly lit bathroom).

However, while I was in the stall, they sent somebody in to do what I assumed was a routine cleaning, and they flushed the one toilet (it took two or three flushes) and replaced the paper products in the other stall as well as the paper towel holder. As luck would have it, my stall ran out of toilet paper at just that moment (don’t worry, I had grabbed the last piece to open the door with). I was gonna give this a 3.5 because they got in there and took care of what they had to take care of (you’d think this would be standard practice everywhere but in my experience it isn’t), but then I realized that both of the toilet paper rolls were out in the stall I was using. Getting knocked down a half roll for that…

If ya gotta go…

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars