Carpenter’s drive-in restaurant Wilshire Blvd and Vermont. Circa 1930s life: A busy waitress serves a customer at Carpenter’s Drive-In Restaurant at the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Vermont Ave. In the background, we can see the Bullocks Wilshire department store, aka the “Cathedral to Commerce.” The drive-in restaurant was a couple of blocks from the only lake in Los Angeles downtown area. MacArthur Park lake. Carpenter’s Drive-in was a large chain of drive-in restaurant in various locations in early Los Angeles. The locations were in the whole metropolitan Los Angeles downtown area and its locations were popular back then. Jnaki I was researching a story about early car “hot spots” in Los Angeles and wrote this story: Carpenter’s Drive-In Sunset and Vine 1940 The photo of Carpenter’s Drive In Restaurant and Diner has been shown plenty of times. It was one of the early restaurants in the Los Angeles areas. We missed it by years by the time we were driving age. But, the surrounding part of the city was where we used to drive to impress the person sitting next to us on late night cruises or actual “Hollywood” movie night. So Cal had theaters in most cities. As nice as the community cities had their own theaters, if one wanted to see a “first run” movie, we had to drive into Hollywood to stand in line and then see a First Run movie. It was an exclusive thing that those movies play in the theaters of Hollywood areas first. Then after several weeks or sometimes months, they started to get shipped to the outlying community theaters. So, as classic teenagers that wanted to get the jump on the majority of the other folks in the local communities and of course, high school, it was a long drive to Hollywood, but well worth it. North on Vine St. NBC Studios While making the supreme effort to drive into Hollywood for the movies, there were places that our So Cal areas did not have. Being in Los Angeles area, the drive-in restaurants were plentiful and then as progress moved along, they started to disappear and the other popular buildings came into being… one being the popularity of TV studios for audience participation and watching shows being filmed live. Do you remember drinking Ben-Hur coffee anywhere? Most home coffee home servers/makers were the aluminum two level pots that had the coffee in a twist on cup under the hot water area. Then it dripped down into the bottom area, prior to serving. If one wanted to keep the pot of coffee hot, placed back on the low setting of the flames usually did the job. Drip coffee? Much better than percolating... Way ahead of its time? No longer using the percolation process, but a simple hot water dripping down through the waiting coffee grounds started the whole concept of “Drip Coffee,” today. YRMV
Using my local driver as an example. They haven't improved much. A company proving that throwing money at employees doesn't equal improved quality. Just the opposite in fact. A company in competition with USPS as being the worst, least desirable delivery system. Don't get me started.
The Jalopy Journal
