As far as Los Angeles parks go, MacArthur Park tends to hog the limelight (mainly because someone left the cake out in the rain, if you catch my meaning.) However, four blocks west of it, is a smaller, less-known Lafayette Park, and that’s the park we can see in this photo of the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Hoover St, where the popular Simon’s drive in restaurant stood. Simon’s was a popular chain with more than 20 locations around L.A. in the 1930s and ‘40s. This photo was probably taken from the roof of the Townhouse Hotel in, I’m guessing the late 1930s, which Simon’s was at its peak—but if anyone can tell me different, I’m open to suggestions
That corner where Simon’s once stood is now home to a huge apartment complex. This image is from November 2020.
This is the cover of a 1940s menu of Simon’s showing all their locations. The eight at the bottom feature “Dairy Lunches.” Can anyone tell me what that is? I’m guessing a lot of cheese was involved…?
** UPDATE ** – I’ve had a couple of responses. One person said it meant “no beef, no fowl, no port.” Another person said it was code for “kosher.”
This reminds me so much of Mildred’s place in “Mildred Pierce.”
Simon’s Lunch Room on Wilshire first shows up in the City Directory in 1937.
https://imgur.com/LDMFFut
and from the stuff going on on the corner it might be finishing touches on the place
https://imgur.com/h7vr5xz
I used to live in Los Angles back in the nineteen seventies. There was a drive-in restaurant on Wilshire that had a circular building that looked something like this picture of Simon’s, but I think the name of it was Delores. There was a sign in front with a picture of an old horseless carriage, and the sign said it was the world’s oldest drive-in. I used to drive over there on Sunday afternoons to get a milkshake and imagine that I was living back in the golden age of Hollywood. I wonder if this is the same drive-in; maybe it operated under different names over the years.
A lot of those drive-ins changed hands over the years so it could well have been the same one.