These days, you’d never find a restaurant with the word “Mammy” in the name, but the 1930s was a different time. Mammy Louise’s Bayou was at 8711 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip. It was run by a black woman named Louise Brooks but owned by Phil Selznick, who was David O. Selznick’s uncle. He also took over the It Café on Vine Street from Clara Bow, and Club Versailles at 8590 Sunset, which was rumored to be a front for Bugsy Siegel and later became Mocambo. Something dodgy was going on because Mammy Louise’s Bayou was raided in the fall of 1938 and subsequently went under. Its next incarnation was an upscale lesbian bar called Cafe Internationale.
That same building undergoing renovation in January 2017. I’m pleased to see it’s still there.
These days, you’d never find a restaurant with the word “Mammy” in the name, but the 1930s was a different time. Mammy Louise’s Bayou was at 8711 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip. It was run by a black woman named Louise Brooks but owned by Phil Selznick, who was David O. Selznick’s uncle. He also took over the It Café on Vine Street from Clara Bow, and Club Versailles at 8590 Sunset, which was rumored to be a front for Bugsy Siegel and later became Mocambo. Something dodgy was going on because Mammy Louise’s Bayou was raided in the fall of 1938 and subsequently went under. Its next incarnation was an upscale lesbian bar called Cafe Internationale.
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