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Kowloon
As I mentioned a few pages back in writing about a Chinese restaurant called Wan-Q, my family had its favorite place to get chow mein and it wasn’t Kowloon. Kowloon was at 6124 W. Pico Boulevard,...
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The Brown Derby
The one on Wilshire near the Ambassador Hotel At one point, there were several of them in Los Angeles but only one (the one on Wilshire opposite the Ambassador Hotel) was constructed so that when you...
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Hamburger Hamlet
There are still a few Hamburger Hamlets around: One in Pasadena, one in Sherman Oaks, a new one over on Larchmont and ones in Virginia and Maryland. Still, I think of the ones that were in Beverly...
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Sambo’s
Someone I worked with once said that the only tragedy of the civil rights movement of the sixties was in the demise of Sambo’s Restaurants. A Sambo’s was like an IHOP, which then was more often...
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Webster’s
I don’t know much about Webster’s Restaurants, other than that a man named Dick Webster opened several of them around Los Angeles and that he boasted of serving the best lemon pie in the world. The...
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Wil Wright’s
Wil Wright’s was a chain of ice cream parlors that dotted the Southern California landscape up until the mid-seventies. There was one in Beverly Hills at the corner of Beverly Drive and Charleville,...
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Junior’s Delicatessen II
The original Junior’s Delicatessen opened near the intersection of Pico and Westwood in West L.A. in 1959. As explained here, it was a small operation run by the Saul Brothers that mainly sold corned...
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Vince’s Pizza
Vince’s Pizza was located on Westwood Boulevard about three blocks north of Santa Monica Boulevard. That’s a generic image above, not a photo of an actual Vince’s Pizza. I doubt any memorabilia exists...
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Sorrentino’s
Sorrentino’s Seafood House was one of several Southland restaurants owned and operated by members of the Sorrentino family. It was located at the corner of Pass Avenue and Riverside in Burbank. A...
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Carnegie Deli
The Carnegie Deli in New York is a great and wonderful place…and probably more prosperous than ever since its neighbor, the Stage Deli, recently closed. The Carnegie Deli in Beverly Hills was not a...
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Cassell’s Hamburgers
Cassell’s may not be completely defunct but its first two outlets certainly are, as are several short-lived “expansion” outlets in the eighties. Once upon a time, its name was the most often-given...
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Damiano Mr. Pizza
The last remaining outlet of Damiano Mr. Pizza closed unexpectedly at the end of May. Mitchell Kitay, the owner, told the press that he was forced out by the owners of the restaurant Animal, which...
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Tom Bergin’s
Everyone called it “Tom Bergin’s” or “Tom Bergin’s Tavern” but the real name of the place on Fairfax that closed at the beginning of July was Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe and Thoroughbred Club. It was...
View ArticleThe Highwayman
This one is so obscure that I don’t have any visual material to post and I can’t find a single mention of the place on the web. When the Century City shopping complex was opened in the mid-sixties,...
View ArticleWoody’s Smorgasburger II
The comment thread on the original posting here about Woody’s Smorgasburger got so long that we decided to stop it there and start a sequel over there. You can read the old thread here. Please continue...
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Buddha’s Belly
The Buddha’s Belly on Beverly Boulevard just east of Fairfax closed last September. There’s still a location out in Santa Monica. The eclectic Pan-Asian restaurant had struggled for some time. The...
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Chuck’s Steak House
There used to be a number of Chuck’s Steak Houses in Los Angeles and I miss ‘em. There are still Chuck’s around — the nearest one seems to be in Santa Barbara — but they do not seem to be a chain,...
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Flakey Jake’s
In the eighties, there was a war of competing hamburger chains: Fuddrucker’s versus Flakey Jake’s. I liked them both but slightly preferred the latter, particularly the Flakey Jake’s on the northwest...
View ArticleWoody’s Smorgasburger III
We’ve had so many messages posted here about the late, luscious Woody’s Smorgasburger that we have to break them up. This is the third thread of comments. You can read our article about Woody’s and...
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Woody’s Gallery
Much of this weblog has been joyously devoted to one of my favorite now-defunct places to eat…Woody’s Smorgasburger. Many former employees have chimed in to create a weblogged history of the chain,...
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