L.A. Restaurants

VAN de KAMP'S — Today, the Van de Kamp's logo adorns a line of frozen fish products, a small line of baked goods...and not much else. During my childhood, it denoted a huge bakery concern and about a half dozen restaurants around Southern California, all recognizable because of the large windmills they sported. Also, some supermarkets had a small Van de Kamp's store inside that sold very good bread, cookies and pastries. I was a particular fan of something they called Cocoa Vanilla Cake, which was one layer of white cake and one layer of chocolate cake with chocolate filling between the layers and vanilla frosting all around.

The Van de Kamp's chain began in 1915 when Theodore J. Van de Kamp founded a potato chip stand in downtown Los Angeles. It soon expanded into all kinds of based goods and by 1930, into the restaurant business. Their signature items were the baked goods and a luscious, deep-fried halibut that, with fries alongside, was not technically "fish and chips" but was darned close. In 2004, the company was purchased by the Pinnacle Foods Group, which now operates the brand name.

The Van de Kamp's restaurant I recall best was located on Wilshire Boulevard in the area called "The Miracle Mile." Back then, it was a thriving area of several blocks filled with department stores and places to buy clothing. You could go to Harris & Frank's, Desmond's and many others...but the biggie, the place everyone had to go, was Orbach's. It was a huge store crammed with clothing bargains for those who could and would brave (often) capacity crowds. Van de Kamp's was right across the street from Orbach's and after you escaped with your purchases, you could hop over there for a bite to eat. I remember both stores always being absolutely crammed with people.

But then as malls and other kinds of retailers sprouted across the Southland, Miracle Mile lost its appeal. Orbach's moved down the boulevard to a larger, more modern building — at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax in what is now the Petersen Automotive Museum. Without the wardrobe mecca across the avenue, that Van de Kamp's withered and died, and the others seem to be expiring at the same time. That probably also led to a closure of a nearby branch of Du-Par's which seemed to thrive on the overflow from Van de Kamp's. Before long, all the Van de Kamp's windmills were gone, the special baked goods sections were gone from the markets and it was just a brand of hamburger buns and frozen fish. And while it isn't bad frozen fish, it's not the same.

SCANDIA — One of the fanciest restaurants in Los Angeles was located at 9040 Sunset Boulevard, just west of Doheny. A man named Ken Hansen originally opened it across the street in 1947. Ten years later, he moved into its more famous location and began serving Scandinavian cuisine to a rich and famous clientele. His sister-in-law, Teddy Hansen, served as the hostess in charge of greeting and seating the beautiful people and she knew everybody.

My family had some wealthy friends who would sometimes take us there and the thing I remember most vividly is the service. There were waiters everywhere and if you dropped a napkin, six people would converge on you to pick it up, fold it, iron it, offer you a new one and tuck it into your belt. I do not remember the food being especially notable but I remember the fuss they made about every patron. One of our wealthy friends had an allergy to margarine and as he strode in the door each time, he would immediately be greeted by name by a male maitre'd, who worked alongside Ms. Hansen and who I recall as being very much like the one played by John Cleese in the "Mr. Creosote" sketch from the last Monty Python film. He would welcome our rich friend, remark that he recalled the man's allergy to margarine and announce that he personally would go into the kitchen and remind the chefs that no margarine was to be used in the preparation of our order. That was the kind of personal attention that built Scandia.

In the early seventies, the Hansens sold Scandia to magazine publisher Bob Petersen, he of the automotive magazines. By then, the character of Sunset Boulevard was beginning to change. Other businesses in that area, including the Roxy nightclub and the Rainbow Bar and Grill, attracted a younger, rowdier crowd. Every night, police were busting drug dealers within yards of Scandia, and it did a lot to drive Scandia's older, wealthy clientele to other, newer eateries. The place finally closed in 1989.

HUNGRY TIGER — This was a chain of seafood restaurants around Southern California. At one point, there were forty-one of them, including one in Westwood Village, another one on Sepulveda near LAX, and yet another on La Brea just South of Hollywood Boulevard. Those were the ones I went to, and I'm not sure why because I never particularly liked the food at them and insofar as I could tell, neither did anyone else. The secret of their success seemed to be location, location, location. They were the only "nice" places to take a date or client in certain areas.

The chain was started in 1962 by, the story goes, a group of former Flying Tigers' combat pilots. Some of the first outlets resembled hangars more than restaurants and all were decorated with photos of old planes and aviators. I'm not sure many patrons understood the connection.

In the early eighties, business fell off substantially, apparently due to an influx of strong competitors into the marketplace. The Hungry Tiger chain needed to remodel and upgrade but lacked the funds to do this so in 1985, a new management team was brought in, some of the less profitable outlets were closed and a general relaunch was attempted. It failed to turn around public abandonment of the eateries so in the years following, most of them closed and a few went independent. There are still Hungry Tiger restaurants around but not as part of a large chain.

The last time I was in one, it was the one in Westwood. This would have been around 1980. My date and I were going a play at the Westwood Playhouse and with parking being as difficult and expensive as it was up there, it seemed logical to dine at the Hungry Tiger that was in the same block as the theater. We could park once for both, get validated at the restaurant and...well, you get the idea.

We both ordered the broiled shrimp and when it came, it turned out to be the kind served in the shell...not my favorite way of having shrimp. When they serve it that way, you always seem to spend forever digging the meat out and there isn't very much of it. These had almost none. My lady friend and I were amazed at how little edible shrimp flesh you got in a serving of Hungry Tiger broiled shrimp. It was barely one mouthful. We mentioned this to our server who called over a manager who basically told us, "That's our broiled shrimp. If you didn't get enough to eat, order something else and pay for an additional entree, heh heh." We would have done that if there had been time before the play, except that (of course) we would have done it at another restaurant.

After the play, we decided to go somewhere and actually eat, rationalizing that at least the hefty tab I'd played at the Hungry Tiger had gotten us our parking at a discount. It turned out that despite the posted signs, the lot no longer honored Hungry Tiger validations and I had to pay full price to get out. The next day, I wasted about an hour calling the restaurant and the corporate offices of Hungry Tiger to complain. The attitude I encountered was along the lines of "If you don't like it, eat somewhere else." Thereafter, I did...and wasn't surprised that so many other people did, as well.

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