While mostly bland, cookie-cutter strip malls and prefab facades line American main streets today, eccentric, eye-popping structures decorated 1920s and 1930s roadways with larger-than-life replicas of the very goods they sold. Heavily popularized by the explosion of car culture and booming movie production in Southern California, this popular programmatic architecture surrounded Toluca Lake and neighboring areas in its heyday.
The twee novelty Mushroom Inn popped up at 3500 W. Olive Ave. in the early 1920s, with dainty toadstools serving as seats. The whimsical cafe served patrons through 1936 but remains mostly a mystery, with little surviving information on the menu or owner. It was later replaced by a gas station, and an office building with ever-changing restaurants now occupies the site.
Former Los Angeles detective James J. McNamara turned his struggling self-named film studio at 4011 Lankershim Blvd., across the street from Universal City, into the aptly named Movie Studio Cafe in an effort to stay financially afloat. The ramshackle roadhouse opened March 24, 1926, featuring futuristic design and massive standing sets surrounding a center stage showcasing a band and dance space. This hands-on moviemaking experience failed to attract audiences, however, closing less than a year later. A quick succession of dance halls like Pals Cafe, Blue Goose Cafe and Wampas Inn replaced it, before a total revamp in the 1960s turned the space into an upholstery shop. After hosting a variety of other enterprises, the flattened site now serves as the Metro parking lot for the Universal City/Studio City subway station.
Burbank’s Magnolia Park resident E.J. Johnson looked to celebrate Halloween year-round with his purported $50,000 cabaret, the Pumpkin Inn, at 3611 W. Magnolia Blvd. The Burbank Daily Review called the giant jack-o’-lantern “the most unique establishment of the ‘wayside inn’ variety in this land of unique stopping places along the highways.” Constructed of a wood frame covered with orange-painted cement, the irreverent cafe featured a circular dance floor surrounded by tables and booths. After only one night open, the fanciful honky-tonk exploded in flames June 2, 1927, with only the outside shell surviving.
Magnolia Park Realty rebuilt and refurbished the great pumpkin into its real estate office months later, converting the interior into an auditorium, dining room and sales office. Capitalizing on its spooky connotations, the realtors hosted a Halloween party for their grand opening that October, and they continued operating at the site into the early 1930s. While it never magically transformed into an elegant carriage, the quirky lodge then flipflopped from cafes/nightclubs Pumpkin Inn and Pumpkin Palace to Valley Gospel Center and later Magnolia Park Hardware, before being rendered into a drab and lifeless facade.
Motorists froze into looky-loos in the 1930s and 1940s upon seeing Studio City’s out-of-this-world service station, the Royal Albatross. A former decommissioned Zenith Model 12 airliner, the oddity featured neon effects on its fuselage and the description “California’s Most Unique Service Station” in advertising, opening December 17, 1932, at 12007 Ventura Blvd., where it sat as though ready for takeoff. Fuel tanks below the plane’s wingspan offered customers a dry spot to fill up during rainy weather. Paul Allen, active in San Fernando Valley civic organizations, took over operations in the late 1930s, renaming it the Airplane Service Station.
Looking for something more conventional as Ventura Boulevard grew more congested, Allen remodeled the curiosity in 1948 into a traditional Texaco gasoline station. John Nelson purchased the franchise in 1962, proudly maintaining it through the 1980s. Now a Shell service station, it remains less flashy and dazzling than its early design.
Long before the current Randy’s Donuts opened a franchise in North Hollywood, the Big Donut Drive-In located at 5201 Laurel Canyon Blvd. featured the monumental dessert as a giant rooftop billboard. Owner Russell C. Wendell opened the eighth branch of his chain July 23, 1956, at the northwest corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Laurel Canyon, selling freshly made doughnuts and coffee daily. Each location followed typical midcentury drive-up restaurant design, adding a touch of flair with rooftop doughnuts designed by structural engineer Richard Bradshaw.
Wendell began selling off branches one by one in the 1970s, including what became the first Randy’s Donuts at 6100 94th St. Most removed their delicious-looking decorations, including the North Hollywood location. Now a dull Bank of America site, the building disappears into the background, a crumb of its glory days.
The gloriously restored Idle Hour Cafe, standing at 4824 Vineland Ave., continues the long tradition of a roadhouse cafe at the same location. Michael O. and Irene Connolly pulled permits for a cafe and taproom in 1940, constructing an edifice named the Idle Hour Cafe to resemble giant beer barrels. The popular neighborhood saloon served many a brew leading up to World War II, when Connolly joined the service. The couple divorced at the war’s conclusion, with Irene taking over ownership and management of the eatery.
Ready for a new start, Connolly sold Idle Hour in 1968 to Doris and Rudolph Oravsky, who rechristened their neighborhood bar Rudy’s Keg. Just two years later, Dolores Fernandez purchased the building, renaming it La Caña and turning it into a flamenco supper club offering Persian dishes, paella and chops prepared by Chef Hassan. The intimate space and its warm wooden interior provided an atmosphere of sensuality and passion for the fiery dance. La Caña’s sultry flamenco shows continued until the early 1980s, when Fernandez refashioned the space as an arty dinner theater hosting daring presentations on Mary Magdalene and Casanova. After closing in 1984, the building remained dormant for the next 31 years, though it was named Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #977 in 2010.
Five years later, the 1933 Group, led by Bobby Green, Dimitri Komarov and Dmitry Liberman, purchased the empty building, restoring and refurbishing it into a new Idle Hour Cafe, a friendly neighborhood hotspot with outdoor patio and private room. Adding extra ambiance, the team purchased the Petersen Automotive Museum’s replica of the Bulldog Cafe, originally located at 1153 W. Valley Blvd., moving it to the site and converting it into party and private space in the backyard. The site thus blends vintage atmospheric architecture with novelty replica into a witty homage to Los Angeles’ more colorful and lively past.
Witty and quirky, these irreverent designs proffered a postmodern take on architecture and advertising, a pleasing soft sell to passing motorists. Their unconventional motifs inspired future amusement parks like Disneyland, Universal Studios and Legoland, as well as the over-the-top fantasy of Las Vegas. Quintessentially American, this playful form of programmatic architecture offers a nostalgic look back at local history.
