@HEMIDAV This Life Magazine photo is nice and it certainly looks like the one at the intersection of PCH (101) and Santa Fe Avenue in Long Beach. It has been difficult to get a photo of the old drive in that was located there. But, the key was the background gas station that was across the street, looking eastward toward the L.A. River. At the angle of the photo, it shows the gas station. Hello, Our dad was always driving around the neighborhood and then he was off to work. So, his insight into the neighborhood stuff was the key. He was not secretive, but liked to share his finds with the whole family. We walked everywhere, then rode our bikes and finally as teens, we had cars to use for our own explorations. The memories are abundant in all phases of growing up in the Westside of Long Beach. The first time was in our own neighborhood in the Westside of Long Beach. It was a corner drive-in restaurant at the busiest intersection of PCH and Santa Fe Avenue. Our dad had gone there many times and then took our family to see for ourselves. It was fun to watch the ladies come out to your car on roller skates. They were good. It was a few blocks away from the LA River and the Long Beach Freeway #710. If anyone is going from the LA/ South Bay area to Orange County, PCH was the best route. So, a zillion people drove by this drive-in restaurant almost daily. PCH is the busiest street then and now. These days, during this downpour of rainstorms hitting California with a fury, that intersection could be underwater. Most of those streets leading up to the L.A. River to the East are prone to flooding. It is not that they are rather low elevation, which a lot of them are. But, the street level curb drains, do all of the clearing of water and take it to the river. But, as the L.A. River flows at a rapid rate toward the Queen Mary Cruiser in the harbor and open ocean entrance, rapids are fast and rising with every day of continued rain. So, the entrances to the river drains are slower than normal, causing a back up of sorts on the normal streets. Even level ones with no dips. Over the years, it had a number of fast food style buildings, after the drive-in was gone. But, the location with the wide parking area and a nice pad for the main restaurant building was tempting for other food industry investors. For some reason, the intersection is very busy back in the 50s, the clientele was packed in the early housing tracts, the businesses nearby were very popular, including one of the biggest specialty welding supply and manufacturing places, called Bill Williams Welding. (They welded several items for our Willys build, including a custom tow bar that attached to the front bumper brackets.) A lot of the old drag racing companies near here, Mailliard Speed Shop, Mickey Thompson, Speed Engineering and other smaller build shops used the Bill Williams Welding Shop at one time or another. The street out in front, Santa Fe Avenue, was usually packed for any parking. Hot rods, working trucks and family sedans of all sorts were the normal customers. The nearby harbor shops and facilities, also used them for all sorts of welding projects. Jnaki To spark some memories, across the PCH street was the famous Currie’s Family Restaurant. It was a sit down lunch and dinner restaurant that had the best food anywhere, except for our mom’s home cooking. Even with the close proximity of the drive-in restaurant and the walk-in fine dining Currie’s Restaurant nearby, our family did frequent both places. So, did a lot of families for the Sunday evening dinner events. Even though our dad took a ton of photos of everything, he never took one of the drive-in restaurant or Currie’s. Our dad bought the first real house on the far reaches of Long Beach. Our backyard was the Terminal Island Freeway and over the railroad berm was Wilmington. After 1955, that old Craftsman house was within a baseball throw of the end of the Lion’s Dragstrip shut off area and sand berm. But, during the time 1948 to 1953 when we lived in that old house, our dad took us to his favorite places all along the Santa Fe Avenue street. The movie theater, the tasty restaurants and his favorite, the Italian food store and supplies, just down the street. The one thing he did was to take us to the local drive-in restaurant on the busy corner of Santa Fe Avenue and PCH. It was a fun place to go as the food was tremendous and the waitresses were on roller skates with shorts and funny hats. NOTE: Being in the back of our dad’s 1953 Buick sedan, we had our own roll down window and window tray. So, my brother and I each had our own trays. No hassle with the two of us sharing one tray. Our dad was thinking ahead. He even took us inside for a quiet sit down dinner in those deep cushioned red booths with buttons and a revolving menu for music on the table. Wilmington to the West Los Angeles River to the East on PCH… In my research, no mention of the old drive-in restaurant was found. Perhaps it is lost and gone forever…until someone else had a photo or two in their old files… Then as our teenage driving days came, that place disappeared and in its place was the eventual modern Jack In The Box. The photo is facing East toward the Long Beach Freeway and the Los Angeles River. So, does anyone have actual photos of this mysterious drive-in restaurant in the Westside of Long Beach? The Los Angeles city drive-in restaurants were popular and we frequented those, too. Our absolute favorite was in Bixby Knolls and that has been documented many times. But, this corner has/had the most traffic of just about any corner on PCH from the Los Angeles County beaches to the West through Wilmington on toward the vast Long Beach freeway 710 to the East. So, as busy as it (the highway traffic) was prior to the freeway construction, who has those photos? Note 2: “Cater-corner” or “Kitty Corner” or whatever is your region’s way of saying something, is across the street and down the block. It is the Number 2 Taco Bell built in the 1961-62 era near our old house. It still stands as it is labeled the “Oldest functioning Taco Bell Restaurant” for historical facts. It was a fast, go to place to get into Mexican Food, as fast at the hamburger stands just down the street.
The Jalopy Journal
