18 Foods Californians Grew Up With in the ’70s That Disappeared

Some of the best foodie things about a California childhood in the ’70s no longer exist.

You can’t order them, you can’t drive to them. You can only remember them.

Here are the California foods that vanished, and the memories that didn’t.

Pup ‘N’ Taco

Only in California could a stand sell you a taco, a hot dog, and a pastrami sandwich off the same little menu and make it feel normal.

Pup ‘N’ Taco started in Pasadena and spread to nearly a hundred spots across Southern California, slinging cheap tacos and tostadas to a generation of kids.

Then in 1984, Taco Bell bought all 99 locations and erased them almost overnight.

The pastrami-and-taco combo that made no sense and total sense at once vanished right along with them.

Naugles

Before there was anywhere good to eat at midnight, there was Naugles.

Born in Riverside in 1970 and open around the clock, it fed every hungry California teenager who needed a Macho burrito or a pressed, crispy cheese burrito with that green sauce at an hour no decent kitchen was open.

Del Taco absorbed it through the late ’80s, and by 1995, the last one was gone.

Folks still chase that cheese burrito.

Pioneer Chicken

That chicken was orange. Bright, sunset orange, in a crispy batter no other fried chicken had, served up under a cartoon pioneer and a covered wagon.

Pioneer Chicken ruled the Los Angeles fast-food scene and sponsored the Lakers during the Showtime years.

Ownership changes and a Hardee’s buyout in the early ’80s started the long fade.

You walked in through the candy counter into the gaslight-era racket, and if somebody at your table was brave enough to order The Zoo, the staff hauled it out on a stretcher to a screaming siren and a pounding drum while the whole place turned to watch.

Farrell’s faded over the decades, and the last California parlor finally closed its doors.

Sambo’s

For a long stretch, the family pancake breakfast in California meant Sambo’s.

Started in Santa Barbara in 1957, it grew to more than a thousand restaurants, all syrup and coffee and storybook murals on the walls.

The name drew justified protest, and the chain went bankrupt in the early ’80s, closing almost everywhere at once.

The original Santa Barbara spot held on the longest under the old name before it, too, finally let the sign come down.

Those pancakes are a memory now.

Doggie Diner

Up in the Bay Area, lunch came with a grin.

Doggie Diner served hot dogs and burgers across San Francisco and Oakland, marked by that unforgettable rotating sign: a dachshund’s head in a chef’s hat and a bow tie, beaming over the parking lot.

The chain closed in 1986, and most of the grinning heads came down.

One was saved and still watches over a San Francisco street, the last smile from a whole vanished lunch counter.

Tiny Naylor’s

Before the drive-thru, there was the drive-in, and in Los Angeles, that meant Tiny Naylor’s.

Carhops brought your burger and your malt right to the car window, and the coffee-shop locations served patty melts and pie at all hours under that swooping Googie roofline.

The chain dwindled through the years until it was gone for good.

The carhop on roller skates gliding out with a loaded tray went with it, the kind of California scene that now lives only in old photographs.

Ships Coffee Shop

Here’s a thing no restaurant would dare today: a toaster on every single table.

Ships, the round-the-clock Googie coffee shops scattered around Los Angeles, let you toast your own bread right there at your booth, golden and warm, exactly how you liked it.

“We Never Close” was the promise, and for decades, they kept it.

By the mid-’90s, the last Ships had closed, and that little tableside toaster became one more fun idea California let slip away.

Van de Kamp’s

You knew it by the windmill.

The big blue Van de Kamp’s windmill turned over the bakeries and coffee shops, a Dutch fairy tale dropped onto a Los Angeles boulevard, the smell of fresh bread pulling you in from the sidewalk.

The restaurants and bakeries closed, the windmills came down one by one, and a California childhood lost one of its friendliest landmarks.

C.C. Brown’s

The hot fudge sundae, as you know it, may have been born right here.

C.C. Brown’s sat on Hollywood Boulevard near the Chinese Theatre, serving its famous hot fudge in a little pitcher on the side so you could pour it over the ice cream yourself, warm and thick.

It closed in 1996, and Hollywood lost the parlor that, by many accounts, gave the world the hot fudge sundae.

Wil Wright’s Ice Cream

Some ice cream was rich. Wil Wright’s was almost too rich, and that was the whole point.

The pink-and-white parlors around Los Angeles served the densest, creamiest scoops in town, each one arriving with a crisp little macaroon perched on the side.

The parlors closed decades ago, and that impossibly rich scoop with the macaroon disappeared along with them.

The Nut Tree

Halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, the family car always stopped at the Nut Tree.

For California kids road-tripping the highway, it was the great oasis: a restaurant, a toy shop, a candy counter, and a miniature train that carried you across the property.

The Nut Tree fed and entertained travelers for generations before it closed in 1996.

The little train, the fresh fruit, the whole roadside wonderland, gone from a stretch of highway where stopping used to mean something.

Winchell’s Donut House

Saturday mornings in California smelled like Winchell’s.

Born in Temple City in 1948, the “Home of the Warm ‘n Fresh Donut” once stood on what felt like every other corner, the pink box a fixture on California kitchen counters.

Tastes changed and the chain shrank hard, fading from the corners it once owned.

A few still hang on, but the Winchell’s of your childhood, glowing at dawn with the fryer going, has mostly slipped into the past.

Love’s Wood Pit Barbecue

Long before barbecue went trendy, California had Love’s.

You tied on the bib, the ribs came smoky off a real wood pit, and the whole family dug into a slab with the sauce running down everybody’s hands.

Love’s Wood Pit Barbecue was a Southern California sit-down staple for decades.

The chain disappeared, taking those wood-pit ribs and that paper bib with it, and California barbecue lost a piece of its history.

Clifton’s Cafeteria

Pushing a tray through Clifton’s was a downtown Los Angeles rite of passage.

The grand cafeteria turned its dining room into a redwood forest, complete with a waterfall and towering fake trees, while you loaded your tray with Jell-O, roast beef, and pie down the long line.

The original cafeteria era ended, the trays stopped sliding, and one of LA’s most beloved oddball dining halls passed into legend.

Lyon’s Restaurants

Up north, the family sit-down dinner often meant Lyon’s.

The Northern California chain was where you went after church or the game, a roomy booth, a tall menu, and a slice of pie to finish.

Lyon’s closed up through the ’90s, location by location, until none were left.

Another reliable California table, the one your whole family could agree on, simply disappeared.

Carnation

“From contented cows,” the slogan went, and California believed it.

The Carnation ice cream parlor on Wilshire was the place for a malt or a towering sundae, all polished and pretty, a treat that felt like a real occasion.

The flagship parlor served Angelenos for generations before it closed in the late ’90s.

The malts spun by those contented cows are gone, another sweet California ritual that exists now only in the remembering.

Foster’s Freeze

That soft-serve swirl, dipped or plain, was the taste of a California summer.

Foster’s Freeze put its walk-up windows on corners all over the state, and a cone after a day at the beach or the ballfield was practically the law.