A push to save the legacy of a hometown burgers-and-beer cafe, an oceanside hangout in San Pedro since the 1940s, got a major lift this month from Los Angeles’s Cultural Heritage Commission.
After a first hearing, the city commission voted unanimously to move forward a proposal to grant landmark status to the business. If eventually approved by the full City Council, it would ensure that Walker’s Cafe, 700 W. Paseo del Mar, would remain a restaurant even though the family that has owned it all these years can no longer run the business.
Walker’s has been closed for about four months.
Emma Rault heads up the effort and prepared the application for landmark status.
“I’m sensitive to the spirit of place, the identity of a community,” said Rault, who grew up in The Netherlands and lived “all over” Europe before settling in San Pedro. “Walker’s encapsulates a lot of what is unique and distinct and special about Los Angeles. Since 1946, it’s played a very important role in the community.”
An online petition has garnered more than 2,400 signatures in support of the cafe.
But the city process has only just begun.
The Jan. 20 vote moves the issue forward, with an in-person commission site visit to be set up next, followed by a second public hearing, consideration by the Los Angles City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, and then a final vote by the full council to grant landmark status.
The application, importantly, has the support of Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents the area.
Speaking at the Jan. 20 meeting of the Cultural Heritage Commission, Derek Brummett, the grandson of original owner Bessie Mae Petersen, told commissioners his father, Richard Brummett, remains the sole owner of the cafe but is unable to continue operating it.
Ownership is listed as Richard D. Brummett, trustee, Brummett Trust in Yuba City.
“He’s 89 and in poor health,” Derek Brummett said of his father, “which is why the restaurant had to be closed in October. He will no longer be able to run the cafe and the remaining family members will not reopen the cafe, so it will either be sold or closed permanently and boarded up.”
Derek Brummett said he was not aware of the landmark status effort until the meeting notice arrived. The alcohol permit for the cafe had been grandfathered in for his family through the years, he said, and that might pose a challenge for any new ownership.
The cafe is directly across from Point Fermin Park and San Pedro’s southern ocean cliffs, a popular community gathering spot throughout the year.
Several residents spoke in favor of the application, including Mona Dallas Reddick, president of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society. The organization, she said, “enthusiastically supports” the landmark designation that would maintain the site’s use as a cafe.
“For decades,” Reddick said, “the old cafe has embodied the seaside and waterside character of San Pedro.”
She also referred to what she called the “ill-advised” destruction of San Pedro’s old Beacon Street district in the 1970s
“We’ve stripped away too much of our history,” Reddick said.
Keith Nakata, a member of Hollywood Teamsters Local 399, which represents location managers, said the cafe has long been a popular spot for film crews.
“San Pedro has so many gems that need to be protected,” he told commissioners. “It’s a very interesting working-class neighborhood.”
Thw town, Nakata added, has the potential to draw many more filming applications because of sites like Walker’s.
“It’s an amazing place,” Anna Marie Brooks, who grew up in Torrance, told the commission.
While she’d only eaten at Walker’s once, it left a lasting impression.
“You could tell it was a community hangout and we have so few of those left in Los Angeles anywhere,” Brooks said. “And the view is amazing.”
Rault, meanwhile, is advocating that Walker’s remains a cafe as a “legacy business” — with the landmark status protecting the structure as a cultural resource.
“It didn’t take me long after first moving to San Pedro to recognize how special Walker’s is,” she wrote in the introduction to the online petition. “It is a genuine, unpretentious, homey space.”
Rault said she was a frequent visitor to Walker’s and, like so many others, was stunned to realize it had quietly been shuttered last fall with no announcement or information about its status or future.
The idea of San Pedro without Walker’s, Rault said, has galvanized supporters who want to salvage its history.
For now, the building still stands but is locked up and, Rault said, being carefully watched by its many neighbors.
“It’s such a time capsule” on the inside, Rault said in a telephone interview.
Walker’s featured a horseshoe-shaped counter, a hand-painted menu board and linoleum floors.
Even before Walker’s opened in 1946, the spot had served San Pedro locals since the early 1900s as a grocery store and as a tavern named Cuddles.
The Walker’s menu featured such items as “Bessie Burgers.” After Peterson’s husband died in 1958, the matriarch continued running the cafe with her sister, Christine Price.
The restaurant closed once before, in 1994, when Petersen’s health was failing. She died in 1996 and her son, Richard Brummett, reopened it.
A new Walker’s-style cafe won’t be an exact replica, most likely. There are new building codes and there would be a new owner with new ideas. But Rault said she hopes it can retain much of the spirit of the old gathering spot — and pay homage to what came before.
“I would assume that whoever steps in would want to do their own tweaks,” Rault said, “but with an appreciation and love for what it is.”
The original stucco building — which has recently been boarded up after vandals broke some windows — remains but is likely in need of upgrades. The area also has a residential zone designation. Walker’s operation was grandfathered in within the zone, Rault said.
“That’s the thing with these places,” Rault said. “They’ve been there forever and you just expect that will continue.
But “once it’s gone,” she added, “there’s just no way of getting it back.”
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Walker’s Cafe in San Pedro gets a boost for landmark status designation - The Daily Breeze
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