Clifton's Cafeteria

Clifton's

The sign greeting you at the entrance (Photo by Derek Hutchison)

By Erik Jay

In One Era, Out the Other

After three quarters of a century, ownership of Clifton's Cafeteria at 648 S. Broadway is changing hands. The Clinton family sold the restaurant to Andrew Meieran, dedicated Downtown booster and owner of The Edison, a nightclub/bar in the Higgins Building.

To clear things up right away, the building itself, constructed in 1916, was not sold. In fact, Clifton's Cafeteria leased space in the building for 71 years and the Clintons just bought the structure in 2006. New owner Meieran bought the restaurant enterprise for an undisclosed sum, and will have a master lease on the building.

At the September 21 press conference announcing the news, Meieran showed why he is considered one of the driving forces in Downtown revitalization. He discussed plans for creating as many as 100 jobs in the building, and his intention of keeping on the 60+ cafeteria employees. Further, Meieran seeks to cooperate with the Midnight Mission to run a jobs training and placement program in the restaurant.

A Family Saga

The Clinton family boasts five generations of California restaurateurs. The family's Golden State saga began in 1888 when David Harrison Clinton arrived from Missouri and bought the Southern Hotel, with its large dining room, in Downtown L.A. The first Clifton's eatery was born in 1931, when Clifford Clinton leased a dilapidated cafeteria at 618 South Olive Street and established what customers began to call "The Cafeteria of the Golden Rule." A neon sign flashed, "Pay what you wish," a precursor to the later slogan, "Dine free unless delighted."

Clifton's Cafeteria, as we know it today on Broadway, was actually the second "Golden Rule" restaurant. Clifford Clinton bought the lease of the former Boos Brothers Cafeteria in 1935. The Olive Street location went through a few phases – including a long stretch as Clifton's Pacific Seas, complete with waterfalls, geysers, and a mural of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane – before closing in 1960. Clifton's once had as many as eight locations going simultaneously, including Lakewood, West Covina, Century City, Woodland Hills, Laguna Hills, and San Bernardino. The Broadway location is the lone survivor.

Historic links

Jack Kerouac, whose On The Road is one of the seminal post-beat and pre-hippie tomes, wrote in his book about "a cafeteria downtown which was decorated to look like a grotto, with metal tits spurting everywhere and great impersonal stone buttockses belonging to deities and soapy Neptune. People ate lugubrious meals around the waterfalls, their faces green with marine sorrow." Where else but Clifton's Pacific Seas could that have been? Other locations of Clifton's, particularly the regnant Broadway location, have been featured in many books and films, including The Long Embrace, Violin Dreams, Remain Silent, and A Few Good Women, among others.

New owner Meieran feels it is his duty to be a good steward of this historic treasure, even as he works to make it part of the DLA resurgence. At the September press conference, he acknowledged the challenge of paying heed to the past while bringing the restaurant and the building into the new millennium. "We feel honored to be a part of the Clifton's legacy and the history it represents," he said, adding that his intent was to "once again help establish Broadway as a nightlife destination and [bring] life to Broadway after dark."

CC and BBB

All of this "nightlife" talk is music to the ears of Councilmember José Huizar (District 14), who is spearheading the long-term Bringing Back Broadway initiative. According to Huizar, in fact, the new plans for Clifton's include bringing activity to the street both during the daytime and evening hours as a "contributor to the Bringing Back Broadway initiative." To this end the cafeteria will be restored to its original condition while infrastructure and building systems will be completely upgraded. Sit-down and bar service will likely be added on the upper floors and Clifton's bakery will start turning out the baked goodies again.

At the press conference, Clinton gave no timeline for the upgrades to be completed and did not say when his last day at work might be. However, he did assure regular patrons (of which there are still 1,500-2,000 per day) that the restaurant would be open continuously during the various changes and transitions.

Since 1931, Clifton's has been known for hearty fare in the "great American grub" tradition – roast beef, potato salad, turkey and dressing, peas-'n'-carrots, apple pie with vanilla sauce, and more. With a fanciful interior design to go along with its great DLA location and reasonably priced, soul-filling food, Clifton's Cafeteria is truly an L.A. original. Thankfully, its value was recognized by Andrew Meieran, who will now guide the restaurant through the remainder of its first century, and into a second.

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Clifton's Cafeteria
648 South Broadway, Los Angeles, California 90014
Phone: (213) 627-1673
Web: www.cliftonscafeteria.com
Open 7 days a week from 6:30am to 7:30pm

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