November 2009 Archives

Today's column is about Bumstead's Bicycles, the Ontario bike shop with the funny name and the distinguished pedigree. Founded in 1909, the store is the city's second-oldest business, after Graber Olive House.

Bumstead's is celebrating its centennial on Saturday with a 10 a.m. to evening party at the shop, 1038 W. 4th St. (at Mountain), and with a sale Dec. 4 to 6.

They'd like old-time customers to stop by to say hello and reminisce. In the meantime, or if you can't make it Saturday, how about reminiscing right here on my blog? Click "comments" to share your memories of the shop.

The photo at left shows fourth-generation owner Lloyd Bumstead in his shop on Wednesday. He took the business over in 1986 at age 23.

Below is a view of the 420 N. Lemon Ave. location circa 1960 when Bumstead's sold sporting goods as well as bicycles. The store was on Lemon from 1960 to 1986 before its move to 4th Street.

Happy 100th, Bumstead's!

Photo at left by Stephanie Guerra

This week's restaurant: McConnell Hall, Pitzer College, East 9th St. (at Mills), Claremont.

The best dining bargain in the Inland Valley may be the Claremont Colleges dining halls. Sure, they're for students and faculty, but the general public is allowed in. They have breakfast, lunch and dinner on weekdays, brunch and dinner on weekends. It's buffet style, all you can eat, and the cost is a mere $7, beverage and tax included. (You might be able to bluff your way in for the $6 student-faculty fee.)

Regulars can tell you the idiosyncracies of each college dining hall. I've had lunch at most of them and have yet to be disappointed. The offerings change daily. Here's a link to the Pitzer site; note the limited hours.

At Pitzer one recent day, they had a couple of soups, salad and dessert bars, stations for hot or cold sandwiches, chicken teriyaki breast, a gourmet pizza (with pear as the topping) and a pasta. There was fresh fruit, breakfast cereal dispensers, frozen yogurt and undoubtedly more that I've forgotten.

The made-to-order chicken sandwich, pictured above, had Swiss, mushrooms, grilled onions, lettuce and tomato. Good stuff, as was the pizza and the soup. As you can see in the second photo, there was no shortage of cookies, brownies, pastries and other sweets for an indecisive blogger to choose from.

The only downside is finding legal parking. Especially with construction going on, spaces are hard to come by and most of them are marked for students and faculty only. To be safe, park on Claremont Boulevard or College Avenue and hoof it a few blocks. Here's a link to a Pitzer map; McConnell Hall is No. 9, on 9th Street.

I went to the Orpheum in downtown L.A. on Saturday for a concert by Ray Davies, frontman of the Kinks. It was probably my fifth time at the Orpheum, now primarily used for concerts. As you can see, it's a little like entering the Palace at Versailles.

(Although few people at Versailles can have dinner beforehand at Clifton's Cafeteria.)

If you're a fan of the Kinks' late '60s period, this was the concert of your dreams, as Davies played such beloved, if little-known, chestnuts as "Autumn Almanac," "See My Friends," "Shangri-La," "Do You Remember Walter," "Waterloo Sunset" and "Days," the latter two being among the most lovely pop songs of the 20th century. (If you don't know them, hie thee to a record shop.)

This was one of my favorite concerts ever. And the venue was no slouch either.

Reader Susan Rose Fenske wrote recently from Brownsville, Ore., after finding my blog while searching for historical Pomona stuff. She attended Pomona High before graduating from Ganesha High in 1959. After her 50th high school reunion, she began thinking about times gone by.

And those included Seapy's, a restaurant on East Holt near the old Pomona High.

"I used to go here with my friends and order mashed potatoes and gravy and chocolate cream pie. I loved those two things and ordered a la carte," Fenske writes.

"I understand the restaurant has been gone for many, many years now. Do you know of any pictures of the restaurant when it was as it was?"

Bruce Guter of the Pomona Public Library couldn't find any photos of the restaurant but he did find the charming advertisement at left in the 1956 Pomona High yearbook.

Anyone remember Seapy's?

Here's a link to the online slide show of 21 (!) photos of Pomona's Masonic temple, the subject of last Friday's column, shot by my colleague Jennifer Cappuccio Maher. The lodge was set to mark its meeting hall's centennial with a rededication on Sunday.

Here's a view in 1955 of the north side of East Holt Avenue in Pomona, between Caswell and San Antonio avenues, photographed from the old Pomona High School. Can anyone identify the businesses visible across the street?

The one at the left, and maybe the one in the middle, might be auto mechanics. The one at the upper right might be Seapy's, a popular restaurant. But you're the experts.

Alas, the whole area depicted is today a vacant lot. (Sigh.) And the old Pomona High, which was gutted in a fire the next year, is now a shopping center with a 99 Cents Only store.

Thanks to Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library for finding the photo in the 1955 Pomona High yearbook.

This week's restaurant: WaBa Grill, 9670 Haven Ave. No. 104 (at 6th), Rancho Cucamonga; also 4110 Edison Ave., Chino; 9870 Sierra Ave., Fontana; 1055 W. Philadelphia St. and 800 S. Milliken Ave., Ontario.

WaBa Grill is a new name to me, although as you can see above, it has four other Inland Valley locations, as well as others around SoCal. The Rancho location just opened in a new center next to Dickey's BBQ just north of 4th Street.

It's a teriyaki bowl place, but one emphasizing the reputed healthfulness of the items: all-natural ingredients, no additives, no skin-on chicken, no oil and no frying.

I had been wary after a sign in the window during construction promised, among other things, "vegitables." Misspellings of core products aside, I gave WaBa a try earlier this week.

I got the No. 2, the chicken plate ($6.99), with brown rather than white rice (80 cents more) and a soda ($1.60). The portion was filling, often an issue with chicken bowl places, and the food tasty. A small salad and orange slices come with.

WaBa also has steak, salmon and veggie bowls and plates from $4.19 to $8.99.

The interior is kind of cool, done in white, orange and red and with mod-ish wall treatments resembling giant brackets. It's like Pinkberry with chicken. WaBa is a decent option if you're in the area. And I am.

Knockers was the bar with the Hooters-sounding name on Foothill Boulevard in far western Rancho Cucamonga, adjacent to the old railroad bridge. It's the part of Rancho that seems like Upland, but isn't.

A reader recently e-mailed the following:

"I don't know if this is breaking news, not like storm watch or anything, but Knockers 'Restaurant' & Bar on Foothill in 'Cucaland' is empty. They had another location in Montclair on Arrow Route one block east of Central, but not sure what the deal is there."

Stopped at a red light Tuesday on southbound Central Avenue at Mission Boulevard, I noticed a sobering economic indicator: a strip club is now employing sign spinners.

Apparently not even lap dances are recession-proof.

Click the comment tab to put your own spin on this.

Wandering the Albertsons/SavOn at Vineyard and Foothill in Rancho Cucamonga the other day, I was surprised to hear Elvis Costello's "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" on the music system.

This was not a hit. Costello didn't really have any hits outside the U.K. This was a track dropped when the album "This Year's Model" was configured for release in America, popping up only on a compilation album of stray tracks, "Taking Liberties," circa 1980. Urgent, rebellious, spiky in both lyrics and guitar attack, the song was considered New Wave, its singer a typical British Angry Young Man.

I love Costello's work from that period, although like most of his songs, it's catchy, but I have no idea what it's about. (Neither does anyone else.) One section:

Men come screaming, dressed in white coats
Shake you very gently by the throat
One's named Gus, one's named Alfie
I don't want to go to Chelsea

And now, some three decades later, this sentiment was safe enough to be played at a chain supermarket/pharmacy as shoppers loaded their carts with breakfast cereal and frozen pizza. What does this say about music? About us? What would Elvis think?

Walking toward me in the aisle was a thirtysomething hipster in a tweed jacket, beard and jagged haircut. He paused and looked up wonderingly at the ceiling, presumably as baffled as I was.

I compliment the chain's music programmers on their adventurousness, worry about the commodification of rebellion and wonder what we'll be listening to in supermarkets in 2039.

Last Wednesday I underwent a painful experience: a kidney stone. It hurt as much as my attack of appendicitis in 1982, the most physically painful thing I've been through. I managed to drive myself to the ER, where I was diagnosed, sedated, CATscanned, prescribed to and released.

Hours later, everything came out okay. (Whew.) You wouldn't think a little fleck like that could cause so much discomfort.

Anyone want to share their own kidney stone experience? How would you describe the pain, and to what would you compare it?

This week's restaurant: Manila Sunset, 11815 Foothill Blvd. (at Rochester), Rancho Cucamonga.

One of a small chain of Filipino fast-casual restaurants, Manila Sunset is located in the Masi Plaza center. I'd been meaning to go for a long time but kept forgetting, as I don't get to Far Rancho all that often. Then my friend Rose had lunch there and sent me a glowing report. Finally I made a point of going there with a friend on our way to "The Crucible" at Lewis Family Playhouse last week.

It's a clean, bright place, done mostly in yellow, with murals and a large patio. You order at the counter, which can be intimidating, since the menu is full of unrecognizable items (if you're unfamiliar with Filipino food, as I am) with names like Pancit Malabon and Tokwa't Baboy. But the manager is very gregarious, explaining the menu and recommending items.

We had the pork BBQ skewers plate ($5.95), milkfish, which was one of the daily specials (price forgotten but around $7), an order of fresh lumpia ($3.95), which is sauteed vegetables in a crepe-like wrapper, and two unusual but delicious beverages, sago at Gulaman, which is an iced gelatin drink, and the iced melon drink ($2.75 each).

We liked our food and thought it was reasonably priced. The menu has a lot of fried items, and eating off foam containers isn't really my thing, so Manila Sunset probably won't be a regular stop. But I have nothing bad to say about the place. The numerous daily specials were on a separate board and may be unique to this location. It was neat to see how the menu doesn't seem to be dumbed down.

The Rancho Cucamonga/Fontana area has a sizable Filipino population. Several other diners that evening were Filipino. Having a Filipino restaurant here is a boon for them and helps make Rancho Cucamonga just that much more cosmopolitan.

Did I really just use "Rancho Cucamonga" and "cosmopolitan" in the same sentence?

From Raremaps.com comes this image of Etiwanda as it appeared circa 1882, shortly after the Chaffey brothers bought up everything. Note the very tiny "coming soon" sign for Victoria Gardens. (Just kidding.) At this writing, you can own the map for $375. Someone needs to buy it.

Books bought this month: "The Shadow of Sirius," W.S. Merwin.

Books read this month: "Local Knowledge," B.H. Fairchild; "On Stage," Ray Bradbury; "The Wizard of Venus," Edgar Rice Burroughs; "The Cat's Pajamas," Ray Bradbury; "The Shadow of Sirius," W.S. Merwin.

The news this month: 1) I bought only one book, and read it, and 2) in my quest to read 50 books this year, I succeeded, reading books 46 to 50 this month. Yay me. And with two months to go, yet.

Onward to this month's books. The Fairchild (bought in September) and the Merwin are poetry. Now, poetry has never been this English major's bag. I like a few of the things we're all supposed to like, but for me, poetry is like jazz, classical music, modern art -- substitute your own mystery art form if you like -- that I don't much understand and have no critical apparatus to evaluate properly.

That said, I bought Fairchild's book at a reading I attended because he's a Claremont resident and highly regarded (a National Book Award finalist, for one thing) and I felt I should know what he's about. I liked his reading and I liked the book, enough that I'll buy more of his work.

Merwin's book was also purchased at a reading. He's one of poetry's heavyweights and his latest collection, the one I bought, won a Pulitzer this year. Well, what the heck, it was a slender paperback and he was there to sign it, so why not?

I was reading it sort of by autopilot -- poems require more concentration and a different type of reading than prose, and I have trouble adjusting to the pace -- when the poems started to connect. First came one about Merwin's childhood memory of his mother's hands as she played the piano: "the veins on the backs of her hands are the color/of the clear morning sky beginning to haze over." The next one combined his parents' first memories with their last moments before death, to great effect.

I can't say I loved or even understood all the poems, but I liked a number of them, and if a non-poetry reader can say that, it must be an awfully fine book.

I'm not one for celebrating Halloween, but that evening a friend and I marked the occasion by seeing the 1922 silent vampire flick "Nosferatu" at Disney Concert Hall with live organ accompaniment. The movie is slightly campy at this point, but still creepy, and the organ added immeasurably to the impact.

It was my first time in Disney Hall and I enjoyed the look and feel of the place. Some patrons were dressed up for Halloween. And some employees in their formal white shirts, black vests and black pants also wore an accessory: glowing devil horns.

Beforehand we had dinner a block away at Kendall's Brasserie, a modestly upscale bistro. A party of four was clad in capes and at the bar a man, otherwise dressed formally, wore a spangled Green Hornet-type mask.

How was your Halloween?

Located across Yale Avenue from each other in the Village are two new stores that sound like they sell healthy food, but actually sell clothing. Even in a recession, the Yuppification of Claremont continues.