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The Brown Derby Restaurants, Herbert Somborn and Bob
Cobb - No other restaurant "chain" will ever be so
closely associated with Hollywood or Los Angeles, golden
age or otherwise (the only competition being Musso &
Frank's). Arguably, the Brown Derby Restaurant at one
point may have been the main symbol of Los Angeles
itself. For more information on Brown Derby
history, see my restaurateur page articles on Herbert
Somborn and Robert
" Bob " Howard Cobb ( creator / inventor of the Cobb
salad).
Menu from Herbert Somborn's Hi
Hat restaurant that briefly became a Brown Derby
Restaurant and was finally bought out by Alexander
Perino to become Perino's Restaurant. Image generously
provided by Annette S.
The first Brown Derby Restaurant (the only one
resembling a hat - generally referred to as the
"Wilshire Brown Derby") was first located at 3427
Wilshire Blvd. (where the Equitable Building now stands)
which later moved to 3347 Wilshire and was incorporated
into a larger coffee shop. There is a nice shot of the
Brown Derby after its one block move, in the movie "The
Stand In" released in 1937 (a pleasant movie with
Humphrey Bogart - it also has a shot of the Ambassador
and mentions the Beverly-Wilshire, the Trocadero Cafe,
the Victor Hugo and Cafe La Maze). The Hat Brown Derby
later became independent of the chain comprised of the
other three Brown Derby Restaurants. The Brown Derby
Restaurant was based on a bowler hat. Its diameter was
28 ft. Its height was 17 and one half feet. The other
later branches were near Rodeo drive at 9537 Wilshire
(the "Beverly Hills Brown Derby"), 4500 Los Feliz
(opened 1941, the structure here still stands and has a
club called the "Derby" - more below), and the Hollywood
Brown Derby was at 1628 Vine St (opened 2-12-29). The
first lot for the Brown Derby Restaurant Hat cost
$155,000. In the early 1930s, Herbert Somborn tried a
more upscale art deco version of the Brown Derby called
the Hi Hat (it later was briefly an official "Brown
Derby" as is discussed in Kevin Roderick's great book on
Wilshire Boulevard). It was designed in part by J. R.
Davidson. Through out the 1930s, the Brown Derby was the
center of a labor dispute with a waiter’s strike and
later the Teamsters and Screen Actor’s Guild boycotting
the Brown Derby with actors manning the picket line.
In 1934, the Original Brown Derby opened an Outdoor
Café. By the way - even in the original Brown Derby, the
whole restaurant did not fit in the Hat. There was an
extension not often seen behind it.
 I
previously thought this building below was a
possible remnant of the building that once housed the
Hollywood Brown Derby , but
I now believe it was just a near-by building that was
built to conform with the style of the Brown Derby
building (though I'm not entirely sure). I believe
that the "W" hotel project is thoughtfully incorporating
this into their new structure.
As was previously mentioned, in 1937 the Brown Derby
moved one block and expanded into a coffee shop. By
1941, the Brown Derby was considered more famous than
any movie star, according to newspaper accounts. Long
after Somborn’s death, the Brown Derby continued its
corporate name as H. K Somborn Enterprises. In 1936, Bob
Cobb appeared in an ad for Camel cigarettes. He bought
the Hollywood Stars baseball club of the Pacific Coast
League as a partner with others in 1938 (in 1957 the
Hollywood Stars moved to Salt Lake City to make way for
the Dodgers). At 1632 N. Vine St. the Brown Derby opened
a liquor store in 1940. The Hat Brown Derby had a
California Room, where great emphasis was placed on an
open fire where meats were cooked. In the 1940s you
could choose an uncooked steak and have it hickory
broiled. In 1941, another Brown Derby liquor store
opened at 4500 Los Feliz. In 1945 the Los Feliz Brown
Derby sustained $6000 damage in a fire. The Car Café
Los Feliz branch had a dining room as well as car
service. The Car Café Brown Derby was partially owned
by Cecil B. De Mille. In 1946, the Brown Derby’s labor
problems resurfaced when there was a citywide strike of
restaurant workers. Another Brown Derby store opened up
at 1910 N. Bronson in the 1940s. By this time the shops
had expanded from liquor to pastries, household goods
and gifts.
In
1951 Robert Kreis was the supervising chef at all of the
Brown Derbies. He had worked at the Brown Derbies since
1931. In 1952 Gloria Somborn Anderson (Gloria
Daly) gave up her interest in the three “newer” Brown
Derbies and took over complete control of the Original
Wilshire Brown Derby. The Vine Street Brown Derby did a
$250,000 remodel for its 30th anniversary, inside and
out in 1959, losing it’s Spanish style looks. In
1959, the Hollywood Brown Derby opened a sidewalk café
in a nearby alley. The Wilshire Brown Derby also
redecorated around this time, I guess to keep up with
the other Brown Derbies. In 1975 Walter Scharfe
bought the Vine St. Brown Derby and put a million
dollars into restoring it. The Wilshire Brown
Derby suddenly closed in September of 1980, with plans
to immediately tear it down, but a preservation battle
“saved” it. On April 3, 1985, the Vine St. Derby,
the last of the original chain closed its doors due to a
lease problem. A later version opened up in Pasadena for
a while.
There are so many stories of how the Brown Derby idea
came to be, I'll try to collect them here. One was
Herbert Somborn's friend saying "If you know anything
about food, you can sell it out of a hat". Another
story mentions Wilson Mizner being a big fan of Bat
Masterson, who wore a Brown Derby. Another
variation is that if a restaurant's food was good
enough, it could be called something as silly as a Brown
Derby. Another theory is that it was influenced by New
York governor Al Smith, a friend of Somborn, who wore a
bowler hat. It goes on and on. Send me the version
you heard.
P.S. Isn't it crazy the Hollywood doesn't have a
Brown Derby recreation? And I'm not talking about
the half-way recreations that have been attempted
(including in Florida of all places). How hard
would it be to recreate the Wilshire Brown Derby Hat
with its very austere interior? Please, if there is
an insane Billionaire out there, let's make a new
one and hire me to make sure it's done right! We
need a Brown Derby Restaurant in Los Angeles! And
while we are at it, let's buy up the remaining movie
palaces on Broadway and restore them (hey, would
even doing one be asking too much?). Isn't this a
better use of your money than buying some island in
the middle of nowhere? And above all - it would be
profitable - this time around, Los Angeles is ready
to support the cause!!!
This picture shows the sad state of the Original Hat
Brown Derby, now moved to the top of a mini mall (well
to update, it's now painted some exotic colors and
incorporated in a nice Korean restaurant).
Although the Los Angeles Conservancy and Hollywood
Heritage fought a brave battle to save it, apparently
there are no enforceable rules as to what color it
should be painted and how it can be modified. Of
course, there was also no way to protect the original
interior which is completely gone (it was gutted
immediately in 1980). It's sort of like displaying
the mummy of a golden age movie star and dressing him or
her up as a clown to boot. Of course it's better to have
the shell than not, but something must be done to treat
it with a little more respect. Thank heaven Bob Cobb and
Herbert Somborn are not alive to see this.
There was a recent battle over tearing down the Los
Feliz Brown Derby Restaurant site. This branch
opened in 1941 as a Drive-in Car Cafe - open 24 hours.
In 1960, it went out of business and Michael's
restaurant took over. In recent years it had a
renaissance as "The Derby" swing club, seen in the movie
"Swingers". This battle was recently, thankfully,
won.
BRING THE BROWN DERBY BACK TO LOS
ANGELES!
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