La Paloma restaurant along Route 66 in La Verne, California, is marking its 50th year this week.
But according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the Mexican restaurant’s roots go back even further, to the 1920s:
That’s when the property was an orange grove. Farmhands would pull up to the grove manager’s home for breakfast cooked by his wife before starting their day. That was so successful that in 1930, the Wilsons turned their home-based business into an official concern by constructing a long, low-slung building with a tile roof and calling it Wilson’s Sandwich Shop, according to a 2010 history by Galen Beery.
The restaurant was next to a fruit stand that sold fresh produce and orange juice — all you could drink for $1, Love says — to motorists along the fledgling Route 66. There was little else along the road for miles in either direction.
The sandwich shop became a steakhouse and expanded, pushing out to the street in the mid-1950s and adding stained glass windows, still there today, from a church. But when the Wilsons died, the restaurant closed in the early 1960s.
Joe Parker, who owned Mexican restaurants in nearby San Bernardino, saw potential with the abandoned property. He bought it, renovated it and reopened it in July 1966, and the family has operated it ever since. And little has changed, including the decor and the menu.
Here’s a video about the restaurant:
One of its servers, Marsha Felix, has worked there since 1970. The general manager, Steve Love, has been there for more than 40 years, too.
The orange grove behind the property disappeared by the 1990s. La Paloma, which featured a decidedly rural setting, saw development spring up around it, like many towns in Los Angeles metro region have.
And the restaurant benefited with once having a footprint in two municipalities. One part of La Paloma once sat in La Verne, the other in Pomona. Eventually, the restaurant settled entirely in La Verne. But those fuzzy borders helped when the restaurant wanted to sell margaritas.
The liquor license application in the late 1960s benefited from the confusion. As Love tells the story, La Verne wasn’t keen on alcohol, but the head of the Chamber of Commerce, who liked a good martini, encouraged Parker to apply for a license anyway, under the theory that no one would realize the restaurant wasn’t in Pomona until it was too late — which turned out to be the case.
As for the kitschy, 1960s-styled sign, La Paloma has no plans to change that, either. Its distinctive look has become more iconic with age.
(Image of the La Paloma sign in La Verne, California, by jojomelons via Flickr)
I love eating at la paloma. its one of the iconic mexican restaraunts in pomona/ la verne I never knew it used to be in both cities. If you are ever in the area you have to try their chimichangas they are to die for. surprised its only been 50 years so much history there it seems like much longer.