On my way down to the Springs Wednesday I stopped off in Pasadena to get lunch at a dive I used to frequent near Cal Tech. Sadly, the place is looking a little dog-eared, and I wish I hadn’t gone.
It’s never been pretentious—only 21 places at the Formica counter, three deuces and two four-tops for groups. But there are only about seven of the swivel stools left; the rest of the seats are a mish-mash of chairs that look they came from garage sales. And I don’t think anything has been invested in the facilities for at least 15 years. (Certainly the ladies room is teetering on the edge of not being up to code.)
The burger was really not very good and at $6.75, grotesquely over-priced. And the pie crust didn’t seem as flaky as back in the day. I suppose that’s just me being a grumpy old stick-in-the-mud, but I was truly disappointed.
Back in said day, a couple owned and ran the joint: he flipped the burgers and she baked the pies. The waitresses made coffee in vacuum brewers (the only place I’ve ever seen them in use), and the clientele was a mix of South Lake Avenue business types, Techies and older, low-income neighbors. Now South Lake is all chain stores (a Macy’s in the old Bullock’s building) and the neighborhood has no one with an income below $250K. Only the Techies are constant.
Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s the kid who’d been working the grill with the old man took over and he’s run it ever since. He did some empire building—opening a second restaurant in Arcadia and, for a while, one in Northern California. They even had tee-shirts. Now it’s just the original one, and I didn’t see any sign of the owner.
The menu (on actual menu cards, in addition to the listing on the wall) includes fruit bowls and strip steaks, which I suppose appeals to the millennials. And there’s even beer and wine, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Plus, it’s been discovered by the New York Times, which might explain some of the quality issues.
At least there’s no Wi-Fi. Yet.
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