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306. Kuzins, Rebecca. 1984. Clifford Clinton’s food
fantasies: You could safely say he’s fed more people than
anybody but the army. He’s provided, so to speak, Meals for
Millions. Los Angeles Reader 6(18):1, 8-13. Feb. 24.
• Summary: A long, excellent overview article. Sometime
during World War II, on a typical workday in downtown
Los Angeles, you come trudging down Olive Street until
you “reach a building at 618 S. Olive St. that, by only the
utmost understatement, could be described as ‘unusual.’ A
waterfall runs down from the roof a few feet toward a
collection of rocks and foliage above the door. Smaller
waterfalls and other trees and rocks are placed on either side
of the central waterfall.
“Once inside you see a tropical decor many times more
garish than the scene that accosted you on the street. You
can sit at table among caged canaries, a dozen more
waterfalls, and gigantic palm trees. The walls are sheathed
in bamboo and the place is lit by neon lights in the shape of
lilies and other flowers. Daring guests sit in a rain hut where
a simulated monsoon is recreated every 20 minutes.”
“This is actually a cafeteria, but you’d never guess it,
because the path to the food counter is a long, dark cavern
in back of the building, illuminated only by lighting from
fish tanks placed along the path.
You’re right–this is not just any cafeteria. It’s Clifton’s
Pacific Seas Cafeteria, a legendary eatery that has staked
out its place in the city’s history.” But in 1960 it was
demolished to make room for a parking lot. Two years ago,
when the writer started conducting tours of Broadway, she
found that as they walked past the place where Pacific Seas
used to be, her “charges would describe with perfect clarity
meals they ate 30-40 years ago at Clifton’s. Their interest in
Clifton’s piqued my curiosity and led me on a year-long
odyssey into the heart of the cafeteria.” In the process she
“came to know one of Los Angeles’s truly great promoters–
the late Clifford E. Clinton, the founder of the chain of
restaurants bearing a composite of his first and last names.
Clinton understood as well as anyone that Los Angeles is
one part reality and the rest pure invention.
“‘He was trying to do something way out of the
ordinary,’ said his youngest son, Donald Clinton, who, with
his sister Jean Clinton Roeschlaub, now owns the Clifton
Cafeteria chain.
“‘This was before Disneyland,’ agreed Jean. ‘He was
trying to make something memorable, something to appeal
to tourists.’
“Clifford was born into the restaurant business. His
grandfather, David Harrison Clinton, arrived in Los Angeles
in 1888 and soon purchased the dining room of the old
Pacific Hotel. David’s son, Edmond, moved to San
Francisco, where he and his wife Gertrude, became owners
of a chain of dining rooms called Dennets. Edmond and
Gertrude had nine children, including Clifford, who was
born in Berkeley on August 3, 1900.
MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 135
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“In what became a significant event in young Clifford’s
life, his parents temporarily left the restaurant business to
become Salvation Army missionaries in China. Clifford was
ten years old when his family made the trip; they stayed for
two years. He would later say the sight of starving Chinese
people remained in his mind all of his life, profoundly
affecting the way he conducted his business.
“Returning the United States in 1912, Edmond Clinton
opened another chain of cafeterias in San Francisco called
Clintons. Clifford Clinton left high school in 1915 to be
storekeeper one of the restaurants, rising to supervising
manager of all six restaurants by 1925. He eventually
became one of the three partners of the Clinton Cafeteria
Co., though Clinton differed with his partners on how to
best manage the business.
“‘His ideas were just a little to wild for San Francisco,’
said Jean Clinton Roeschlaub. ‘His partners were more
conservative and they forced him out of the business.’
“San Francisco’s loss was Los Angeles’s gain. Moving
here in 1931, Clinton found the perfect city in which to
enact his cafeteria fantasies.
Note: The word “cafeteria” is Spanish for “coffee
shop.” Some, including the writer, claim that Los Angeles is
the home of the cafeteria or of the “modern cafeteria;” she
cites two sources. But the majority opinion disagrees.
In 1931 Clifford Clinton purchased what was already a
cafeteria at 618 S. Olive St. According to Jean Clinton
Roeschlaub it already “‘had a couple of palm trees and a
little fountain in the dining room. But in no way did it
resemble what my father did with the 1939 remodeling.’”
Clinton “could not have picked a less opportune time,
for the city was beginning to feel the effects of the
Depression... Clinton responded to the economic situation
with a combination of evangelical zeal and business
acumen. He dubbed the business ‘The Cafeteria of the
Golden Rule.’” He established a policy that no guest would
be turned away hungry for lack of funds. But during the
Depression this policy made it hard for the restaurant to run
profitably. Moreover, as Donald Clinton recalls: “‘Many of
these people were dirty, drunk and smelly and it wouldn’t be
right for them to sit down with paying guests. My dad was
enough of a realist to know there were going to be
problems.’
“Clinton solved this problem by opening the Penny
Cafeteria in the basement of a building at Second and Hill
streets on October 10, 1932. Patrons at his Olive Street store
could purchase tickets for a penny a piece and hand these
tickets to a hungry person who would stop them on the
street. For the price of a ticket, a diner at the Penny
Cafeteria received a complete meal from soup to dessert.
Merchants donated produce, meat, and day-old bread to the
project. The Penny Cafeteria closed after two years but
Clinton continued to serve nickel and quarter meals to
needy persons throughout the thirties.”