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History of Los
Angeles Metropolitan historic restaurants, historic
bars, historic
buildings and historic
hotels
from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s with a description of their
history (movie palaces, motel signs, and remnants of Rt. 66 as
well) - places like the Brown Derby Restaurant,
Musso
and Frank's, the Formosa Cafe, Miceli's Italian
Restaurant and Canter's Deli - this website
concentrates on the history of those bastions of a bygone era
(note I have ulterior motives for over using the words history
and historic - the things ya gotta do in the modern world!). Get
ready to enter history and take a trip back in time. By clicking
on the hyperlinks at the bottom of the page, you will find
charts of restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, movie palaces and
buildings in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and beyond (I
like to call it Las Sangeles - Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San
Diego, San Francisco and towns in between - Baltimore and D.C.
restaurant history included too, although not quite suburbs of
LA!) which were built before 1970,
still exist (except
for my extinct restaurant page) and still have elements of the
original interior design (or at least look like they are
original). There are a lot of excellent websites that
concentrate on the history of specific restaurants like the
Brown Derby Restaurant. However, I’m not sure there are any
that concentrate solely on the history of pre-70s bars and
restaurants in general with original, not overly remodeled
interiors (yeah - even us married guys can be into interior
design!). These are the places the present generation calls "old
school". Using this guide you can still spend an entire week in
California and Las Vegas at restaurants, bars, movies, shopping
etc. and in effect not leave the 1940s (you could have spent the
exact same week back then - well, maybe a little less traffic!).
You can also explore the historic mysteries of Los Angeles' dark
side: Did Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia) live in the Alto
Nido apartments? Where did Sharon Tate have her last meal? Does
Hollywoodland still exist? Where did Raymond Chandler hang out?
Is the Queen Mary haunted? Where was the last restaurant James
Dean ate at before his crash. These and other historic
questions and more are answered by exploring this site.
NOTE: THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION - for the time being go to
my very similar site
www.latimemachines.com
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[You will find scores of historic restaurants
 that
still exist with pictures and histories - like the Prince
Restaurant picture here - by visiting the restaurant pages for
various cities. The Prince was the location of the restaurant
scene in the movie "Chinatown".]
What qualifies as "Old
School"? Well, on this site I'm not referring to Oxford or
Cambridge Universities. For me a true Old School place is a
restaurant, hotel, bar or other building interior where you can
sit and feel like you’ve returned to the past (alternatively I
also call such places "Time Machines"). It’s sort of like when
you hear an old tune that brings you back to an earlier time in
your life (although the best time machines for me bring me to a
time before I was born). Sitting in these places, one has the
illusion of going back in history to a time gone by when life
had a slower pace, people cared about quality and integrity, a
person's "word" was good as gold and life’s pleasures were more
simple and innocent.
 [The
incomparable Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles - you just have to
check out their indoor pool - straight out of the "Great Gatsby"
and featured in the movie "Bugsy"]
Los Angeles (Las Sangeles
in general) is full of wonderful old school places of this
nature, although they are vanishing at an alarming rate. Our
history is disappearing. In the thirty years I’ve lived in or
near Southern California, we’ve lost the Hollywood Brown Derby
Restaurant, Nickodell’s restaurant, Chasen’s Restaurant,
Vickman’s restaurant, C.C. Brown’s, most of the movie palaces
(as places to see movies at least) and the list goes on and on.
In even earlier times, the destruction of our pop culture
history in Los Angeles was constant. For example, there are no
longer any traces of the original (first) Café Trocadero and
Mocambo on the Sunset Strip. Surprisingly, however, there are
still a wealth of old school bars and restaurants left (and many
I have yet to discover). The more interest we can collectively
generate in these historic bars and restaurants (and patronize),
the more likely the rate of destruction will at least slow.
[Union Station - art
deco sublime and featured in one of my favorite movies - Blade
Runner. The last of the great train stations build in
America ]
Before exploring these
bars and restaurants by clicking on any of the hyperlink topics
below, it’s important to read the WARNINGS PAGE, so that
you know exactly what you're getting into! I make no
representations whatsoever regarding the safety of visiting any
place (especially bars) on this site! [Note: On most pages
(except this one) you can click on the thumbnail (small)
pictures to expand them. You can also use the magnifying (plus)
icon to expand for great detail. Then hit the back arrow to
return to the main page. There are a lot of pictures, so some
pages may be slow to load for dial-up visitors.
RATINGS - For
better or worse, I thought it might be nice to institute a "time
machine" rating for each place I mention. I give them from one
to five "T's" (for "Time Machine" effect) based on my purely
subjective guess as to how much of the historic, original
interior design remains (except for those historic recreations
that really work, like the "El Capitan" movie palace). The
number of T's has nothing to do with the quality of the food or
drinks, or even how nice the ambiance is. It just reflects how
well preserved the original interior is. A place with a one or
even "no" T rating may be a perfectly wonderful restaurant or
bar, but it's almost totally remodeled . With that, we're off!!
 [La
Dolce Vita in Beverly Hills - while no one can beat Musso's
history and interior, this may be the best all around "time
machine" considering the food, service, friendliness, history,
romantic setting, background music and "star sightings".]
LEGAL BLURB: All writing, photos
and pictures, to the best of my knowledge are in the public
domain or are "fair use". If I am mistaken in this belief,
please contact me and the content will be corrected or removed
immediately. None of the businesses or organizations or links
mentioned in this website are affiliated with me or the website.
None of the businesses or organizations or links mentioned in
this website in any way sponsor this website or any of the
information listed here. All text, files, articles, images,
pictures on this website (if they are my creations) are
copyrighted (3-30-2005 # TXu 1-236-517 and TXu 1-317-834
9-11-06) and are strictly prohibited to be used for any purpose
without prior express written authorization from the author. All
Rights Reserved.
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