Los Angeles Restaurant, Cafe, Bar & Pub History - Miscellaneous Interesting Facts

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES BARS & RESTAURANTS - MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTING FACTS

These are just miscellaneous interesting tidbits of classic Los Angeles bar, restaurant, hotel and building history. If you want more details and pictures visit the rest of the site starting with THE HOME PAGE FOR LOS ANGELES BAR & RESTAURANT HISTORY .

The first booth on the left as you enter Musso and Frank's Grill from Hollywood Boulevard was Charlie Chaplin's favorite table. I don't know if they still do it, but for years when a kid would order a tuna fish sandwich at Musso's, it would come with a face on the top by cleverly placing olives and a pickle for the features.

The interior of the Fred Harvey Restaurant at Union Station (still fairly intact) was created by Mary Jan Colter.

Henry "Hank" Charles Bukowski Jr. - during times he could afford it, hung out at the Musso and Frank Grill bar and became friends with longtime Musso's bartender Ruben.

Dave Chasen, founder of Chasen's Restaurant was born in Odessa, Russia. Ben Dimsdale, owner of various restaurants including the Windsor, was also of Russian heritage - with his parents born in Minsk. Mickey Cohen was the son of Russian Jewish parents, his mom being born in Kiev. "Prince" Michael Romanoff of Romanoff's restaurant did not have a drop of Russian blood.

Jules Salkin was the architect used for some of the later versions of Perino's Restaurant and Romanoff's Restaurant (although I'm not sure if it was for the exterior or interior). Alexander Perino, the founder of Perino's, was thought to be so exacting that he ordered every piece of lettuce to be inspected before being placed in a salad.

Ontra Cafeteria, Holloway House and Henrici Restaurants were all owned by the same company.

The Covina Bowl once had its own beauty parlor.

Much of the interior including all the old dark carved woods of Miceli's (Micheli's) Italian Restaurant in Hollywood were originally the interior of the original chain of Pig 'n Whistle restaurants. The Pig 'n Whistle is mentioned in the movie Chinatown.

The first McDonald's building design with the protruding Golden Arches (true Googie style) was the brainchild of architect Stanley Meston.

The Mona Lisa Restaurant opened on September 20, 1930 and was owned in part by Rina Mosso of the same family that owns Musso and Frank's Grill. Rina Mosso once wrestled the gun away from an armed bandit who was attempting to rob her restaurant.

The Gas House Cafe in Venice, California was a big draw for the Beat Generation in the early 1960's.

One of the aquariums at Bahooka's has a 34 pound fish named Rufus.

Clifton's Cafeteria in the 40's had an in-house handwriting expert and advisor for personal problems that patrons could consult. Clifton's is a contraction of the founder's name - Clifford Clinton. Clifford Clinton was a long time crusader against vice and corruption in Los Angeles and at one point had his house bombed by enemies.

On April 8, 1924, the Casa de Golondrina Restaurant was opened by Consuelo Castillo. She opened the restaurant before Olvera St. was converted into a tourist attraction.

The Tiki in front of Trader Vic's in Beverly Hills had to have an anatomically controversial feature removed before the store could open for patrons including young children.

Actress Gail Russell once crashed her car into the counter of Jan's restaurant in 1957.

The kitchen of the Musso and Frank Grill has a pizza oven that as far as anyone knows has never been used for pizza. At present they use it to make croutons!

Sirhan Sirhan is rumored to have eaten at the HMS Bounty Restaurant on Wilshire before crossing the street to the Ambassador at the time of the Robert Kennedy tragedy.

The Tallyho restaurant derived its name from the building where it was located, which originally housed horses.

Prince Mike Romanoff used to eat in his restaurant with his two dogs chowing down at his side.

The famous Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel hangout "Ciro's", the 1940's and 50's nightclub, is now the Comedy Store.

The Brass Monkey Karaoke bar & restaurant was once a bank vault.

Sharon Tate's last meal was at the El Coyote Restaurant before her tragic death at the hands of the Manson cult. Thelma Todd spent her last night at the Cafe Trocadero before her mysterious death.

The "new room" of Musso and Frank's was once the Stanley Rose Bookstore.

The Harbor Room Bar is considered the smallest bar in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The First Academy Awards were held in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel's Blossom Room in 1929.

The Beverly Wilshire Hotel is built over ground that was once a major car race track.

Two of Groucho Marx's favorite restaurants were La Rue and Nate 'n Al's. By the way, here are the Marx brother's real names: Groucho was Julius, Zeppo was Herbert, Chico was Leonard, Harpo was Adolph, and Gummo (my favorite of the Marx brothers) was Milton. My favorite anecdote about Groucho Marx was his comment when being told he could not go into a pool because he was Jewish, was his retort asking if his daughter could wade in half way, since she was only half-Jewish.

During his 1960 campaign Richard Nixon ate at the Stuft Shirt Restaurant in Pasadena. Nixon was also a fan of Chasen's Restaurant and the El Adobe in San Juan Capistrano where a dish is named after him (and the restaurant was owned by the head of the Orange County Democratic Party - Richard O'Neill). Donald Nixon, President Nixon's brother, had a restaurant called Nixon's in Whittier, California.

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel threatened to kill Billy Wilkerson in the 1940's if he did not give up his interest in the Flamingo hotel. It was Billy Wilkerson of Hollywood Reporter fame who actually started building the Flamingo.

The famous Player's Nightclub of the 1940's, 8225 Sunset Boulevard is now the Miyagi's restaurant.

The La Rue Nightclub and Restaurant opened up in 1939. In the 60's it was considered one of the top four restaurants in Los Angeles, along with Chasen's, Perino's and Scandia.

Earl Carroll's famous 1940's nightclub, 6230 Sunset Blvd. was most recently the Nickelodeon Theater. Earl Carroll's demise came in the form of an airplane crash in 1948.

The grand opening of the Academy Movie Palace at 3100 West Manchester Blvd. in Inglewood featured the movie "Another Thin Man" with live appearances by Myrna Loy and William Powell. No word about Asta the dog.

The restaurant that served in the surrealistic "Winkie's" coffee shop scene in the movie Mullholland Drive was Caesar's Restaurant.

The Original Schwab's Pharmacy is seen in the movie Sunset Boulevard.

The renown 7 Seas (Seven Seas) nightclub at 6904 Hollywood Blvd. featured artificial rain falling on the roof.

The bar counter in the Musso and Frank's "new room" was originally in the world famous Musso and Frank's backroom, where the literary crowd hung out.

Mickey Cohen was in a gun shoot out in Rondelli's Cafe in Sherman Oaks, California. Mickey Cohen once handed out dollar bills to 70 different orphans at a Thanksgiving celebration. Mickey Cohen also survived a hit in front of Sherry's Restaurant (formerly Cafe LaMaze) which was next to the Bit of Sweden Restaurant. The scene in the movie Bugsy where Bugsy Siegel is arguing with Mickey Cohen was shot at the Biltmore Hotel pool. Mickey Cohen also hung out at the Golden Gopher Bar downtown. Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard, near his wife "Esta". Mickey Cohen's favorite place to shop for clothes was Silverwood's and Bullock's Wilshire.

The Windsor Restaurant (now the Prince Korean Restaurant) was featured in the restaurant scene in the movie Chinatown. It is also seen in the recent movie "Thank you for Smoking" and in the TV series "MAD MEN".

Winston Churchill ate at the HMS Bounty Restaurant while staying at the Ambassador Hotel. Incidentally, by a quirk in U.S. citizenship law, Churchill may have derived U.S. citizenship from an American born relative.

The famous Ben Frank's Googie coffee shop (a Frank Zappa hangout along with Canter's Deli) is now a Mel's Drive-In on Sunset.

Clifford E. Clinton, founder of Clifton's Cafeteria is credited with saving thousands of people from starvation during the depression, in part due to his policy of paying what you can or pay nothing at all at the cafeteria, as well as his numerous charities focusing on feeding the hungry. In 1937, Clinton also headed a grand jury investigating vice and corruption.

Restaurateur (Joseph) Stephen ("Steve") Crane was Lana Turner's second husband. He owned the Luau in Beverly Hills (formerly the Tropics). He married Lana Turner twice and they had a daughter named Cheryl. He also had a connection to Lucey's Restaurant on Melrose.

Restaurant comes from a Latin root meaning "to restore". Ironically, after eating in all of these classic restaurants I'm in bad need of restoration!

Philippe's The Original French Dipped Sandwiches and Cole's Pacific Electric Buffet both claim to have invented the French Dipped sandwich. The building that Cole's is housed in was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Pasquale "Patsy" D'Amore was the first to bring Pizza to Los Angeles in 1939 at his Casa D'Amore restaurant. See my great restaurateur page for Patsy D'Amore.

Philippe's The Original French Dipped Sandwiches to this day charges 9 cents for a cup of coffee. (So much for the saying "That and a dime will get me a cup of coffee"). UPDATE: Disaster has struck and the price of a cup of coffee has been raised to 10 cents!

Herbert Wyman had little experience as an architect at the time he conceived the idea for the Bradbury building. Wyman had doubts about his abilities but supposedly took the commission to design the Bradbury Building after his dead brother told him to do so by means of a Ouija Board.

The Caricature of Jimmy Durante hanging in the Vine Street Brown Derby took up two framed pictures, one for most of his face and the second for the rest of his nose.

Frank 'n Hank's bar is seen briefly in the opening credits of the movie "Barfly" but no one at the bar seems to remember Henry "Hank" Charles Bukowski.

The Ship's Cafe, owned by the Biltmore Hotel owner Baron Long, actually looked exactly like a Spanish sailing ship.

A light on top of the Capitol Records Tower supposedly signals "Hollywood" in Morse code.

Mike Romanoff of Romanoff's Restaurant claimed to be Prince Michael Alexandrovitch Dimitry Obelensky Romanoff of the Russian Czarist family. While it has never been proven with certainty what his real identity was, it appears his real name was Harry F. Gerguson born in a Jewish orphanage in the U.S. or Lithuania.

Canter's Deli was once the Esquire Movie Theater.

The Shirley Temple non-alcoholic cocktail was invented at the Wilshire Brown Derby Restaurant.

Al Levy, one of the earliest famous Los Angeles Restaurateurs, got his start selling oyster out of a cart on Spring St. in the 1880's. His long term famous restaurants were the Al Levy Grill at 617 S. Spring St. and Al Levy's Tavern, at 1623 N. Vine St. He was closely associated with another great restaurateur Mike Lyman, who took over Al Levy's Tavern, when Levy died in 1941. Levy is credited with being the first to create the Oyster Cocktail. Mike Lyman's, being across from the Vine Street Brown Derby, was one of Mickey Cohen's favorite restaurants.

Wilshire Boulevard is named after H. Gaylord Wilshire who was a socialist with a picture of Karl Marx hanging in his office. Wilshire started Wilshire Boulevard by carving a four block Street out of a field he owned on what was then the boondocks of Los Angeles. The builders of the Gaylord Hotel / Apartments named the place after Wilshire without his permission. He promptly sued the builder and in settlement they offered him a room in the apartments for life (which I don't believe he ever used - he died soon after the settlement).

Alexander Perino was hired to oversee the food at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas at its inception.

Marcel LaMaze, one of Hollywood's greatest restaurateurs, also built a cafe in mundane National City, CA that still exists.

The first owners of the famous Nikabob Restaurant were Nick Krause, Paul Perrot (of Montmartre and Ambassador Hotel fame) and the great Robert "Bob" Cobb of Brown Derby Restaurant fame (the name being made up of two of the owners, Nick and Bob, first names). Other contractions: Du-Par's started in farmer Market in 1938 by James P. Dunn (Du) and Edward W. Parsons (pars). Clifton's Cafeteria comes from a contraction of the founder's name "Clifford Clinton".

In 1911, the oldest restaurant in Los Angeles was "Jahnke's". It featured yodelers as entertainment. It was owned by Adolph Jahnke at 1st and Spring.

W.W. "Tiny" Naylor (the nickname Tiny came from him being six foot four and weighed 320 pounds) started Biff's (his son's name) in 1948. The Tiny Naylor chain started in 1957 at Wilshire and Virgil. Tiny Naylor died in 1959. The Naylor family now owns "DuPars" chain of restaurants.

Ptomaine Tommy's, 2420 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, was a very famous place that opened in 1919. Famous for the hamburger they called "the size" which was the first to have beans on it (though apparently not chili?). It closed in 1958.

Charlie Parker had a regular gig at the Tiffany Club at 8th and Normandie in Los Angeles, California for a while. Bird is of course universally recognized as the greatest Sax player ever with John Coltrane, I guess, coming in a close second. Perhaps my favorite living saxophonist is Jimmy Heath. While we're at it, did you know the Bette Midler hit song "Twisted" is sung to the tune of a Wardell Grey Tenor Sax solo? Wardell Grey was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the desert near Las Vegas on May 25, 1955. He had been scheduled to open the Moulin Rouge Night Club in Las Vegas during that time.

Actor James Dean ate his last dinner in the famous Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood. One of the main dishes at the Villa Capri was "Steak Sinatra" since Frank Sinatra was once co-owner with Patsy D'Amore. Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio once asked Villa Capri owner Patsy D'Amore to go along with them on a raid of a hotel room where DiMaggio believed Marilyn Monroe was having a tryst. D'Amore decided not to go. Sinatra and DiMaggio broke into the wrong room and had a few legal problems as a result.

A few addresses Raymond Chandler lived at in Los Angeles: 1024 South Highland, 700 Gramercy Place and 2315 West 12th Street.

Musso and Frank Grill co-founder Frank Toulet's real first name was "Firmin". His wife, Marie Zoe Helene Prechacq, an often unmentioned early staff member in Musso and Frank Grill died at the age of 101 in 1995. Many of the co-owners of the Musso and Frank Grill (from the Mosso family line) actually live in Las Vegas. Forth generation co-owner Jordan Jones belongs to a prominent Las Vegas family which includes founding historic Las Vegas leaders such as lawyer Herbert Jones and Journalist Florence Lee Jones.

The Miceli's Italian restaurant in North Hollywood was once a "Jack in the Box" Restaurant. There was once a Miceli's on restaurant row on La Cienega.

The bar counter in Chez Jay's in Santa Monica wobbles because it was hit with the trunk of an elephant during a promotion event there.

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