For most of the 20th Century, one of the most unique restaurants in Los Angeles was the Brown Derby. From 1926 to the early 1990’s, the Brown Derby was very popular, not just for the food they serve, but also for its distinctive shape. The exterior of some Brown Derby restaurants looked like a brown Derby hat and this where the restaurant chain got its name.
The first Brown Derby restaurant was on 3427 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, but moved one block to 337 Wilshire in 1937, where it remained there until 1980, when it was torn down and replaced with a shopping mall, known as the Brown Derby Plaza, and eventually a Korean mini-mall, where it stands today.
The second Derby opened in the heart of Hollywood (Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St.), three years later in 1929. Although, it looked much more ordinary that the Wilshire location, the Hollywood Brown Derby was famous in its own right, thanks to the stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood who regularly ate there. Inside that restaurant, there were drawings of hundreds of Hollywood’s best actors and actresses of its day. It was also the place where the Cobb salad was born. It was named after the owner and founder, Robert Cobb and was designed for theater owner Sid Grauman, who had dental work done and can’t chew, Irving Thalberg, who had digestion problems, and his movie star wife, Norma Shearer, who was watching her weight. What makes the Cobb salad unique was that all the key ingredients were finely chopped to make digestion easier. The Hollywood Brown Derby would remain there until 1987, when it was largely destroyed by a fire. Today, it is a parking lot for visitors to Hollywood.
There were two additional and lesser-known Brown Derby locations, in Beverly Hills and Los Feliz. Those locations existed until 1983 and 1992, respectively. The Beverly Hills location is long gone, while the Los Feliz location, was converted into a night club, known as the Derby. Today, the Los Feliz location survives as a pub, known as the Mess Hall Kitchen.
The Brown Derby also survives today as a restaurant located inside Disney Parks, such as Disneyland, in Anaheim, Calif. and Disney World in Orlando, and in Ohio.
Photos from Wikipedia
Some material in this post were from the KCET program, “Things that aren’t here anymore” (1995).
L.A.'s Forgotten Treasures 