Why is eating at the Ivy such a big deal?

Why do people eat at the Grill? Spago I get, but the Grill has lousy food. How do such places, not to mention Sushi Roku and the Ivy, become cemented as the places to see and be seen?
—Zelda, San Pedro, California

The B!tch Replies: Advance planning. Before it can even sell its first cucumber-lavender cosmopolitan or $6 plate of soybeans, an aspiring It restaurant has already mapped out its diabolical plot to suck in Hollywood's elite.

That wasn't generally the case in decades past, when a convenient location and a worshipful maître d' was all it took. Hollywood's most desperately orchestrated PR meals still occur at the old-school Ivy, where the food is so-so but the geography perfect.

It's smack in the middle of the see-and-be-seen Roberston Boulevard shopping district—with front-porch seating, to boot. That fact was not lost on Lindsay Lohan when she chose the Ivy for a late-September lunch, her arm  in a cast from some smashup or another, her bid for public sympathy as delicately choreographed as a diesel fire at a monster truck rally.

Much of the Grill's success is also credited to its location, within walking distance of many talent agencies.

But these days, getting Brad Pitt or George Clooney to eat your $42 Kobe beef steak instead of your neighbor's $42 spicy-tuna wonton fantasy requires early action—not just a nice address.

"From the get-go, new restaurants are making sure concierges in the area send people their way," explains one veteran restaurant publicist. "They mail press kits with cover letters to the agencies, inviting them to have their holiday parties at the new restaurant. Event planners are often hired away from other restaurants just because of their client lists."

Other restaurateurs get an early advantage by starting out in the whoop-whoop club promotion business. The nearly 10-year-old Sushi Roku—raw fish supplier to stars ranging from Jennifer Aniston to Jessica Simpson—is co-owned by a very clever man named Lee Maen. Maen and his crew used to run hot places like Gem on Melrose.

"You get to know the trendy crowd," Maen explains to this B!tch, "and then, as soon as we opened the restaurant, we were able to bring them there."

Hence, in 2002, when some dude needed a place to pitch a movie called Snakes on a Plane to a guy at New Line, Sushi Roku provided the necessary ambience.

Performers also like to hang there: One London tabloid nearly soiled its knickers reporting a recent run-in between Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's dad, Joe, at Sushi Roku's Santa Monica location. Clooney and Pitt also go there, Maen says, in part because the staff knows exactly what they want.

"Brad Pitt doesn't want to be bothered so much, so we'll seat him in a less exposed area," Maen says. "But George Clooney loves talking to people, so he'll sit wherever."

One other sure way to turn a mere eatery into a scene: power investors. Ryan Seacrest and Tori Spelling are both shareholders at Sushi Roku, for example, as are a ton of well-connected agents, investment advisers and money managers, all of whom attract scads of new power diners.

"When we bring in a new investor, we don't just do it for their money," Maen tells this B!tch. "We do it because they're going to add something of value."

Like Nick Lachey glaring at Joe Simpson: Not just valuable, priceless.