history Tiki: A California Invention Tiki culture as we know it was invented in Hollywood — couldn't have happened anywhere else. And for added fun, the real mai tai recipe.
columbo Sportsmen's Lodge: Where Hollywood Went Suburban Up until around the time it became Sportsmen's Lodge in 1942, this was a rural attraction, far away from most people at the end of a dirt road.
columbo Chasen's Served the Most Expensive Beans in L.A. Los Angeles' most glittering restaurant specialized in chili. But Ronald Reagan loved the boiled beef.
history Kelbo's: 1986's 'Funkiest Place in L.A.' One of the great pleasures of writing about food and restaurant history is all the ephemera I come across.
history Pup 'n' Taco: An Ideal SoCal Fast Food Chain Pup 'n' Taco thrived until it didn't, but it was never forgotten.
history SoCal's version of the Greek diner Though I've never eaten at a Spires Family Restaurant, I do always notice them: I thought maybe the chain was founded by a very distant relative who forgot how to spell our name.
history No Ding-A-Lings in L.A. I am aghast to find that the Ding-A-Ling ice cream trucks depicted in season two, episode three of "Columbo" were not real.
history The Hollywood barn where 3 million soldiers did the jitterbug The real one, on Cahuenga. Not the the one on Seward trying to steal its valor.
history A Tommy Lasorda Cautionary Tale Tommy Lasorda was the Dodgers manager for 20 years, which is an undeniably high-profile job, but he wouldn't have been so famous and adored if it weren't for his love of food.
history An Early L.A. Catering Truck With Great Timing Of course, in the American style, it eventually turned into the "jam something in your piehole quick" food culture we have here.
history The Star-Studded Chinese Restaurant Closed by McCarthyism The owners, a couple whose marriage wasn't recognized for 11 years, had incredible lives.
history The 1993 Commercial That Explains Sushi Gen This (extremely baller) 1993 commercial for Sushi Gen in Little Tokyo is entirely in Japanese, but it aired in Los Angeles, leading one to wonder, of course, who the target audience was.
history Tail O' the Pup's Hollywood Story Tail O' the Pup was a hot dog stand built in 1946. It was designed by the architect Milton J. Black, who, if this Flickr page (and other sources) is accurate, was beautifully responsible for the look of many of L.A.'s residential areas.
los angeles Watching 'Columbo' for the restaurant trivia Is there a contemporary equivalent to 9000 Restaurant in the 1970s?
los angeles L.A's Influential Restaurants of Yore, and Some Still Carrying the Torch Dedicating this bi-weekly column to the restaurants that built Los Angeles, whether they carried the entertainment industry or gave light to our subcultures.
