2022 has been a rough year for Los Angeles preservationists, with the recent demolition of the Tower Records building and such famed spots as the Viper Room, the Standard West Hollywood and the Hollywood Palladium all facing uncertain futures. But there is currently reason to celebrate! As announced yesterday by Random Length News, San Pedro’s historic Walker’s Cafe and Grill has been purchased by a new buyer who “intends to change nothing.” Shuttered since October 2021, the landmark eatery and popular filming location (most famous for its appearance in the 1974 classic “Chinatown”) had been in continuous operation since the 1940s. Its sudden closure brought consternation and fear to its legions of local fans, especially as its fate hung in the balance. But now the Prospect Group, a Southern California-based real estate development company, has stepped in with plans to reopen the beloved site.
Situated directly across the street from the ragged coastal bluffs of Point Fermin Park (also a frequent film star) at 700 W. Paseo Del Mar, the one-story Spanish Colonial Revival building that now houses Walker’s was originally built in 1917. Though local lore has it that the site initially served as a turnaround station for the Pacific Electric trolley line, a Los Angeles Department of City Planning report debunks that myth. Instead, the write-up asserts that the structure first operated as a grocery store/soda shop. The building underwent a significant rebuild in 1935, at which time it was restructured into its present form and also, for whatever reason, was reduced in size to its current 763 square feet. After serving for a time as the Cuddle Cafe, it was acquired by Raymond Walker, a former Navy Chief Signalman, and his wife, Bessie Mae Peterson, and reimagined as Walker’s Cafe and Grill in 1946. A family affair, Raymond worked the kitchen and Bessie waited tables, with the latter’s mother, Lena Logan, whipping up handmade soups, cakes and pies on the premises each day.
Known for its friendly and welcoming atmosphere and down-home offerings, it did not take long for the place to become a local staple. Though Raymond passed away unexpectedly in a car accident in 1953, Bessie continued to run the place until failing health forced her to retire in 1994. She passed away two years later and her son, Richard Brummett, and his wife, Audrey, subsequently took over operations of the eatery. Richard remained at the helm until last October, when health issues also forced him into retirement (at the tender age of 89!), at which point Walker’s doors were closed. They have remained so ever since.
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Image Credit: Save Walker's Cafe Afraid it might be demolished, locals immediately joined ranks and nominated the restaurant for landmark status in the hopes of preserving it for generations to come. Their efforts worked. On January 20, the Cultural Heritage Commission for the City of Los Angeles voted unanimously to move the proposal forward in an initial hearing. The recommendation report notes that the eatery is “a perfect time capsule of a 1940s cafe” with numerous original elements still intact, including the exterior neon signage, the green and white checkered linoleum flooring, the hand-lettered menu board, the icebox acquired by Bessie upon first purchasing the restaurant and an interior archway (which was initially part of the building’s façade before it was renovated in 1935).
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Image Credit: Save Walker's Cafe The report further states that Walker’s Cafe “exemplifies the vernacular restaurants of its time that played a significant role in L.A.’s social and commercial history.” At the initial hearing, longtime patron Emma Rault summed things up, telling the Cultural Heritage Commission, “But above all, it is significant as a much-beloved institution central to the identity and social fabric of San Pedro for over 80 years.” The eatery is currently awaiting a formal declaration of landmark status, but thankfully, in the meantime, the Prospect Group has snatched the place up, vowing to keep it as is. (A sales price has not yet been disclosed.) The company is currently seeking a party with a hospitality background to come in and manage the site. Silva Harapetian, a representative for the group, tells Random Length News, “We are not restaurant operators. We’re looking for someone who knows how to do this. And potentially someone within the community who has a vested interest, that wants to keep it exactly the way it was.”
That is likely music to location managers’ ears! As film scout extraordinaire Lori Balton told the Daily Breeze, “Period locations are more difficult to find every day in Los Angeles. Preservation is critical.” Being that Walker’s is one of the oldest operating cafes in the San Pedro area (it also has the distinction of being the “southernmost restaurant” in L.A., according to Hollywood Escapes), it has become a go-to for productions seeking an authentic retro aesthetic, and, as such, has racked up countless big and small screen roles throughout its history.
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Image Credit: Paramount Pictures Studios -
Image Credit: Google It is in front of Walker’s Cafe that J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) parks while tailing Los Angeles Water Commissioner Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) at the beginning of the seminal Roman Polanski film “Chinatown.”
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Image Credit: Columbia Pictures Television Murderous religious zealots Ron Burnett (Daryl Anderson) and John Jenkins (Joel Polis) eat at Walker’s while hunting down a victim in the season four episode of “T.J. Hooker” titled “Serial Murders,” which aired in 1985.
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Image Credit: Lions Gate Films The restaurant’s exterior appears as the bar where Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser) hangs out with friends and watches “Frankenstein” in the 1998 drama “Gods and Monsters.” (Interiors were filmed elsewhere.)
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Image Credit: Gravitas Ventures Charlie Darby (Matt LeBlanc) and Molly Kingston (Ali Larter) dine at the cafe in the 2014 romantic comedy “Lovesick.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures The eatery pops up numerous times as the frequent hangout of Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2014 crime drama “Inherent Vice.”
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Image Credit: HBO And Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) discovers Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany) working as a Walker’s waitress following her withdrawal from the Radiant Assembly of God church in the final episode of the inaugural season of the 2020 “Perry Mason” reboot.
Here’s hoping the cafe reopens soon, so locals can get back to enjoying the place’s famous Bessie Burgers and productions can return to re-creating historic Los Angeles within the place’s weathered walls.