It can sometimes be hard these days to know if a photo has been colorized or not, but my guess is that this shot of the dining room of the Vine Street Brown Derby in Hollywood is a genuine color photo. I haven’t encountered many color shots of one of the most famous restaurants in Los Angeles, so this is a rare treat. It’s not hard to imagine the place filled with faces as famous as the caricatures on the walls and the air filled with chatter about David O. Selznick casting a British actress as Scarlett O’Hara, or how Alfred Hitchcock will fare amid Hollywood-style filmmaking. I don’t know that I would have chosen purple carpet. The pink tablecloths compliment it, but I’m not so sure about that red upholstery.

Susan M. says: “This photo is from a much later redecoration done to The Brown Derby. I think this might have been the one done in the late 70s/early 80s. However, I doubt I was in the dining room here in the 70s and 80s other then to walk in and show the room to someone from out of town. The table cloths for years were only white. The booths were brown leather and not tuck & roll; they were flat upholstery until the later years. The light fixtures were changed out to these large brass ones with the little shades. I don’t recall the table chairs, or any chairs being covered in burgundy until the last redo. I think that also was when they started to use light pink base table cloths and the small white square toppers turned on the diagonal. They also remodeled the back divider wall in one of the last redecorating projects. I can recall dark brown carpeting as well as some that were brown with gold scattered print. Again, I think what appears as purple carpet was pieced at an angle to accent the area under the tables. This carpet might have been a brighter burgundy installed during the last redecorating. I don’t know what the menu was like in the latter years. It was always rather large in the years I went here most (30s – early 50s). The customers who frequented, had a variety of eating desires from light supper, full supper and post radio show snacking. The adjacent bar went through more redecorating over the years then did the dining room.”

Here’s a much earlier view (1930) taken before the caricatures started to fill the walls:

Here’s their menu from February 25, 1942. Those pixe fixe dinners look like pretty good value. What would you order?