San Bern restaurant once served the stars

Here’s a long-closed restaurant that even the oldest Route 66 enthusiasts would be hard-pressed to remember.

Mother Massetti’s Inn at 1396 W. Fifth St. (aka Route 66) in San Bernardino, Calif., became a way for an Italian immigrant widow to support herself and her family. The Italian eatery became a hangout for many Hollywood stars during the 1930s and ’40s who happened to be in town, according to an article in The Press-Enterprise.

Eugenio Massetti, Caterina Croce Massetti and their two children emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. The family moved to a house at Fifth and Pico in San Bernardino about 1909. Eugenio died of pneumonia in 1916, so Caterina began taking in boarders at her house for income. Guests received meals and laundry service, and soon she stared providing meals to organizations as another way to support herself and her family.

An adjacent street to Massetti’s house became Route 66 in the mid-1920s, and she opened her restaurant shortly after that.

From the late 1920s to the early 1940s, the Arrowhead Springs Hotel was popular with movie stars, who came to San Bernardino for movie previews. Nick Cataldo, of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, wrote about Mother Massetti that some Hollywood stars staying at the hotel would dine at her restaurant. The stars included Bob Hope, Kay Francis, Gary Cooper, Janet Gaynor, Lou Costello, Dorothy Lamour and Frank Sinatra. When the movie “Skippy,” starring Jackie Cooper, was filmed in the city, Massetti catered food for the film crew. […]

As Massetti’s restaurant grew in popularity, she again added onto her home, this time in the front of the house. Her own popularity grew so much that W.C. Fields offered to help her open a restaurant in Hollywood. She was invited to Bud Abbott’s home in Victorville, Walter Houston’s lodge in Running Springs and Loretta Young’s place in Lake Arrowhead.

Shortly before Massetti died in 1946, she sold her restaurant and retired to another home in San Bernardino. The article does not mention how long the restaurant survived without Massetti running it.

A Google Street View look at the address reveals it to be a parking lot now.

A bit of clarification: Massetti’s Fifth Street address was part of Route 66 from 1931 until she retired in 1946. Fourth Street, just a block away, was Route 66 from 1926 to 1931.

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