The sad, lonesome ballad of the Hyatt Regency

You can take a hotel out of the cheesy, but you can't take the cheesy out of a hotel.

It's been about a year since Hyatt Regency Century Plaza began debuting its much-needed makeover, one that coincided nicely with CAA's move into new headquarters across the street. Prior to that, pulling into its circular driveway was like pulling into an ABC Monday Night Movie wayback machine. I've seen the shot so many times -- high and wide, taking in the hotel's expansive spread with its fountains and curvature of rooms, then zooming in tight to the chandeliered lobby -- that I can only presume that a stock clip existed somewhere, filed under GLAMOUR: LOW-BUDGET.

And, to its credit, the Century City's Hyatt made a lot of changes. In addition to a lot of snazzy new upholstery and curtains, there's the restaurant Breeze, the X Bar and the lobby is now the Lobby Court & Patio. Dingy circa 1978 became sparkly... circa 2005. Wouldn't want to scare people. After all, it's not like they can become the Standard, or even the W. While the makeover was certainly designed to lure the bespoke-suited agents from their glassy lair, Hyatt can't afford to lose the ones who really pay the bills -- the out-of-town businessmen and random conventioneers who fill the 728 guest rooms. And to give the hotel its props, the remodeling has been no small improvement.

That said, there's something weirdly off kilter.

There's the show-no-stains carpet in Breeze. In X Bar, the design is handsome - lots of booths with curvy seating and white-teardroppy chandeliers, not to mention the collection of outdoor firepits -- but the bar menu is a needle scratching on the LP (remember those?), and not in a good way. Gloppy crab dip, raw-tuna nachos and boneless deep-fried buffalo nuggets that glow with Red Dye #2. (That said, there's also Robert Sinskey Merlot available by the glass. How'd that happen?) As for the Lobby Court & Patio, you can't say they didn't warn you: It's, well, the lobby. (I trust that the Patio is the patio, which is probably a good thing.)

At X Bar, there's a rush of business between 7 and 9pm, when the CAA assistants get off work, drink to forget and then hurry home so they can start all over again. However, their bosses do not follow suit: It's still Mr. Chow's, the Peninsula and the Grill, zip codes be damned. Old habits die hard.