It’s RIP for Arby’s in Pomona

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The Arby’s at 2250 N. Garey Ave. in Pomona, a location that dates to 1970 and was never updated, closed May 26. Sunday’s column begins with an item on the restaurant.

There were said to be under 10 locations in the United States that had retained the hat sign and the chuckwagon shape. I’m not a big fast food fan or Arby’s fan, but my friends and I loved the building, the sign and the patio. So let’s pay a visual tribute.

Above is the building in 2010. Below is the sign being (say it ain’t so!) dismantled and hauled away on Tuesday, shot by reader David Pinal.

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I stopped by on Thursday morning to confirm the location was closed for good rather than for remodeling. Signs in the windows direct patrons to Arby’s in Ontario, Chino Hills, Upland and Covina. The interior is cleaned out.

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There was still one shaded table and one waste receptacle (complete with “tray caddy”) left on the patio. Both look original. I’m assuming they’re gone by now. Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Without a neon sign in the shape of a ten-gallon hat, Garey Avenue is a little less interesting.

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Remembering Claremont’s The Railroader

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Reader Judy Gallegos writes with a question:

“Hey David — love your site! I grew up in Glendora in the 70s, and now live in the Midwest, so your site is a nice cure for homesickness.

“Wonder if you or your readers might remember the name of a train-themed restaurant in Claremont/Pomona in the 70s. I believe it eventually became a Victoria Station, but was called something else before that (not Carneys…).

“It was off the 10 Freeway and Indian Hill, I think, and consisted of a steam engine, a caboose, and a few cars. My sister and I have been trying to remember the name and we’re stumped.

“Thanks for your help and keep up the good work!!”

I’ve heard vague whispers about this restaurant, said to have been located at Indian Hill and San Jose, but didn’t have a name to attach. By coincidence, I was just accepted as a member of the Facebook page Growing Up in Montclair, Calif. (tingle!) (even though I didn’t grow up in Montclair) and Tim Corvin just posted a photo there of the Railroader, locating it on Indian Hill in Claremont.

Must be the same place. I borrowed the photo for this blog post.

But that’s all I know. Can anyone tell us more about The Railroader?

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So long, John Silver’s

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Mateys, the only Long John Silver’s Seafood Shoppe in the Inland Valley has pulled up the plank. Montclair’s location, 9379 Central Ave., closed Dec. 31.

“The property that includes the restaurant is currently in escrow,” reports Steve Lustro, Montclair’s community development director.

Arrrrrr.

The Montclair location opened in 1978, according to building records. I ate there once, maybe twice, but have been to other Long John Silver’s — named for the pirate in “Treasure Island” — in my time. Founded in Kentucky in 1969, they may have been more common in the Midwest, where I’m from, than out here.

According to Wikipedia: “Earlier restaurants were known for their Cape Cod-style buildings, blue roofs, small steeples, and nautically-themed decorations such as seats made to look like nautical flags. Most early restaurants also featured separate entrance and exit doors, a corridor-like waiting line area, food heaters that were transparent so customers could see the food waiting to be served, and a bell by the exit which customers could ‘ring if we did it well.’ Many of these buildings had dock-like walkways lined with pilings and thick ropes that wrapped around the building exterior.”

According to the chain’s store locator, the only remaining Silver’s in the Inland Empire are San Bernardino, Riverside, Redlands and Victorville. To the west, you’d have to drive to Norwalk.

The pirate craze seems to have passed the pirate eatery by. Someone at headquarters should walk the plank over this.

Anyone have any memories of this location, or others?

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Remembering St. Charles Grill

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In its day, the St. Charles Grill was one of the finest restaurants in Pomona. Located at 158 W. Holt Ave., a half-block west of Garey Avenue, the restaurant served steaks, chops, lobster and other delicacies, waited on celebrities passing through town (as they did in the pre-freeway era) and hosted service clubs and wedding receptions in its banquet room. There were even some apartments rented out up above.

St. Charles Grill opened in 1930 and faded out in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The space reopened as Alpine Haus (!) in 1973 and as Lucier’s in 1979. (Thanks to the Pomona Public Library for the names and dates.) The building has been vacant for many years and is currently for lease sale.

I’ll be writing a column about the place in the near future. You’re encouraged to comment here with any memories of the St. Charles — the food, decor, atmosphere, staff or whatever else you’d care to share.

Photo courtesy Growing Up in Pomona Facebook page

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Upland Winchell’s sign is now art

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Remember the old Winchell’s Donuts at 887 W. Foothill Blvd. in Upland? What a great sign, and the building was great too. I’m not a big doughnut guy, but I went there a couple of times just for the ambience (and a chocolate raised).

It closed in 2004 (the building is now Cherry on Top Frozen Yogurt), but the sign was saved. It’s now owned by the Museum of Neon Art and is on public display through January on Santa Monica Boulevard at Martel Avenue in West Hollywood. How about that! See my Friday column for more.

Below is the scene from across Santa Monica Boulevard, and below that is a portion of the interpretive panel alongside the sign so we know why we’re supposed to be impressed.

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Remembering Breakfast at Carl’s

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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.

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Go East, young Cattleman’s

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A post here about restaurants that had formerly occupied a building on eastern Foothill Boulevard in La Verne, inspired by a question by reader Tom Gay, brought a note of (intended) correction from reader Tom Meader.

Meader wrote: “Cattleman’s Wharf was on the west end of La Verne. Currently the 99 Cent store is in the approximate location. Nowhere near what was at that time Liberty Ford.”

Meader is mostly right, partly wrong. Cattleman’s did spend most of its life in western La Verne, but it evidently did move to the Ford property in eastern La Verne for a brief period before closing, according to Eric Scherer of the Planning Department.

Cattleman’s began at 1504 Foothill Blvd., near Wheeler Avenue, in a building fashioned like a lighthouse, with beams and pulleys, as if the cattle boat had just pulled up at the dock. Everybody into the kitchen! The menu cover gives a date of 1975; click on the thumbnail version for a larger view.

In the early 1980s, Cattleman’s seems to have moved to the Ford property before vanishing, according to Planning Department files. So Cattleman’s Wharf existed in both locations, making both Toms correct. I love splitting the difference. Everyone’s happy (or unhappy).

The Cattleman’s lighthouse later housed the La Verne Cattle Co., as seen in the photo below, and Toppers, a restaurant that morphed into a night club and was shut down in the late 1980s. The building was demolished in the 1990s and the site became a Pep Boys and a 99 Cents Only store.

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Undated photo of the La Verne Cattle Co., courtesy La Verne Planning Department

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Polynesian puzzle solved

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Back in February, reader Glenn White asked for our help in determining the identity of a Polynesian restaurant that once operated in Covina. A bunch of you weighed in and, five months later, someone got it right and White confirmed it: The Warehouse Restaurant on Garvey at Barranca. Read the original post and comments here.

Lesson: This blog can get to the bottom of any mystery…eventually.

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Restaurant (Closure) of the Week

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I ate at Freddie Mae’s Southern Cooking, in the food hall of Victoria Gardens, on April 22, eating a not-bad fish po’boy sandwich ($7.95). Freddie Mae’s was in the first slot on the west side of the hall, where Nathan’s Hot Dogs had been. I took photos and expected to share them here today.

Because I didn’t get a menu and felt I didn’t know quite enough about the place, I decided to try another lunch on Thursday, three weeks later. Perhaps my spidey sense was tingling. When I walked into the food hall, the Freddie Mae’s space was vacated!

I had already filed Friday’s column with a mention in my weekly blog report that Freddie Mae’s was my Restaurant of the Week. Oy. So I used my new cell phone to email my boss to ask him to hold my column until I could rewrite the last item.

The Freddie Mae’s website says they have a location in Fontana. Well, maybe I can go there sometime.

So what did I do for lunch? I went back to Crepes de Paris, already the subject of a Restaurant of the Week in 2008. But this time, I took photos, which I’ve added to that post.

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