The former Breakfast at Carl’s building, 2011.

You know you’ve lived in the Inland Valley a long time if you remember when BC Cafe (locations in Claremont and Rancho Cucamonga) was located in Pomona and was known as Breakfast at Carl’s.

Reader April Patterson remembers but has a question about the precise location.

“Could you please clear something up for me? There is a thread on Facebook about Breakfast at Carl’s. I seem to remember them on Holt on the south side of the street just west of East End. And then they moved to Claremont.

“Quite a few people are saying that they were first located at the northeast corner of Holt and East End before IHOP went in. But I lived right around the corner from there from 1968 to 1997 and IHOP is the only thing I remember being there.”

Patterson seems to be correct. I found the minutes of a 1976 Pomona Planning Commission meeting online when Carl’s was applying for a beer and wine license. It was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner then. The location given is the southwest corner of Holt and East End, just as Patterson remembers.

The address, for the record, was 1280 E. Holt. (Bit-o-Sweden is described in the minutes as being “across the street.”)

Those minutes say that Carl’s had been open since 1959 at that location and since 1950 elsewhere in Pomona. Can anyone explain that? My understanding is that founder Carlo Purpero also owned a place named Perp’s Purp’s somewhere in Pomona, which may factor into this equation.

Purpero died in 2010 at age 95, according to his obituary.

Feel free to share what you remember about Carl’s or Perp’s. Oh, and does anyone remember their souffle omelet? I’ve been told that was a specialty, and that if you ask for one at BC, they’ll make it.