In today’s ever-changing restaurant scene, there are a handful of restaurants that manage to stay true to their roots for decades.
It’s no mean feat, according to pop culture expert Charles Phoenix, who has made a career out of celebrating the quirky side of Southern California history.
Phoenix is an Ontario native and he loves places like Vince’s Spaghetti, which served its first plate of pasta in his home town in the 1940s, long before he was born.
“I really love a time-honored experience,” he said in a phone interview. “I love legendary landmarks, and that’s what these vintage restaurants have become. It’s a rare experience. There are way fewer restaurants than there were even 10 years ago.
“Place like Vince’s are treasures, cultural treasures. They’re usually delicious as well.”
Some restaurants in Riverside and San Bernardino counties go back even further. “Famous hospitality since 1848,” reads the neon sign outside the Sycamore in Rancho Cucamonga.
There was a one-room shack there that gave travelers “the chance to get off their horses and out of the sun” in the days of dirt roads and stagecoaches, said managing partner Louis Alvarez.
After the shack burned down it was replaced by larger buildings until the current building went up in 1920 and became the steakhouse it is today.
ALSO SEE: These are 10 of the oldest restaurants in Los Angeles County
Most of the restaurants in this story have gone through big changes in their long lives but remain something your grandparents would recognize.
They have another thing in common.
“Basically, it’s the will to go on, and the ability to still do a profitable business,” said Phoenix.
Riverside County
Silver Dollar Pancake House
710 E Sixth St., Corona; 951-737-5977, silver-dollar-pancake-house.cafe-inspector.com;
Founded: 1922
This example of an old-time lunch counter was originally called the Copper Kettle in 1936, according to Corona council member Wes Speake, who recorded the history of the property in a 2019 Facebook post. The restaurant dates the building back to 1922, but according to Speake went with a later date.
The diner went through several owners, names and revisions before becoming the Silver Dollar in 1962, spending most of the 1940s and ’50s as Lindy’s.
The restaurant’s most distinctive feature is its horseshoe-shaped counter with vinyl turquoise benches.
The menu features 15 kinds of pancakes, from buttermilk to fruit roll-ups and corn cakes topped with chili and cheese.
Moment in history: Corona resident Rodger Mattson sketched fellow customers on paper napkins during his meals in the 1990s. Some of his fragile caricatures are framed and hung on a wall in the dining room.
Swing Inn Cafe & BBQ
28676 Old Town Front St., Temecula; 951-676-2321, swinginncafe.com; 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday and Tuesday; 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 6 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. $12-$22.
Founded: 1927
This diner served as a rest stop for motorists traveling between Riverside and San Diego for nearly a century, according to mayor James Stewart. It was originally called Mothers Cafe and got its current name after World War II when it was part of a motel with a porch swing.
The current building dates from 1932. It was remodeled in the 1970s to make it look more like what people think of as the Old West. Current owner Dean Norris, an actor known for “Breaking Bad,” added barbecue to the menu last year.
Moment in history: Local celebrity Erle Stanley Gardner, the novelist who created the sleuth Perry Mason, once visited with Raymond Burr, the actor who played the role on TV, according to a 2014 article in the Temecula Valley Historical Society Newsletter.
ALSO SEE: These are some of the oldest restaurants in Orange County
Sire Bar & Grill
6440 Magnolia Ave., Riverside; 951-683-7473
Founded: 1955
This watering hole in the Magnolia Center neighborhood of Riverside was founded by Harvey Mandel, a Los Angeles native who told Press-Enterprise columnist Dan Bernstein that he was inspired by the movie “Casablanca” to get into the restaurant business.
Mandel was a horse racing enthusiast, according to his 2007 obituary, which accounts for the giant neon horseshoe that has become a Riverside landmark. In 2023, as part of the city’s Beautify Riverside initiative, artist Juan Navarro painted a mural on the side of the building of a jockey in diamond-pattern silks. It was based on a coaster from the bar’s early days.
The menu includes burgers, steaks and chili.
Moment in history: Mandel threw Kentucky Derby parties in the bar, serving mint juleps in “authentic glasses” brought in from Churchill Downs.
San Bernardino County
Centro Basco
13432 Central Ave, Chino; 909-628-9014, centrobasco.net
Founded: 1940
Centro Basco began as a hotel for members of the Basque community who worked at dairies in the region or as migrant sheepherders. The dining room served them family style, and even though the boarders are gone the restaurant still holds monthly “Boarder Table” dinners.
In 1970, it was acquired by the Berterretche family, who added a dining room to the back of the building. It serves such dishes as roasted chicken, pork chops and rack of lamb as well as less common items such as oxtail stew and Basque sausage.
Moment in history: The restaurant added a five-unit motel to the south side of the property in 1953. The red-tiled building still stands.
Sycamore Inn Prime Steakhouse
8318 Foothill Blvd, Rancho Cucamonga; 909-982-1104, thesycamoreinn.com
Founded: 1848
The Sycamore Inn dates its history back to the 1850s and a tavern owned by a former wagon train master called “Uncle Billy” Rubottom. It served as a rest stop for Butterfield Overland Mail, a stagecoach line that ran from San Francisco to St. Louis, a journey that took 25 days. It is now on Route 66, the U.S. highway designated in 1926.
Uncle Billy, a Missouri native, is credited with importing possums to California as a potential menu item for his tavern.
The current restaurant was built in 1920 and had eight hotel rooms on the second floor, according to its website. It serves traditional steakhouse fare and more modern items such as ahi tuna poke.
Moment in history: Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia, visited on a date in December 1946, a few weeks before she was brutally murdered in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 1947, according to witness testimony at the time. The unsolved crime is one of the most famous in local history. Short’s haunting portrait hangs between Marilyn Monroe and Jerry Lewis on a wall decorated with head shots of famous visitors.
Taylor’s Bar & Grill
26787 Barton Rd, Loma Linda; 909-793-4314, taylorsbarandgrill.com
Founded: 1934
This old-school tavern is in Bryn Mawr, a community between Redlands and Loma Linda. It was founded by a family that included 19th century Mormon pioneers but was said to be so hard-core that locals once called it Buckets of Blood, according to “Historic San Timoteo Canyon,” a 2002 book by Peggy Christian.
One of the founders, Henry L Taylor, died in 1962 after hitting his head in a barroom brawl that allegedly began after he hit his wife, an amputee. The story made front page news in the San Bernardino Sun.
Taylor’s announced it was closing in late 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, but quickly reopened.
Its current menu includes burgers, sandwiches, steaks and Mexican food.
Moment in history: In the 1940s, when it was bringing in Western swing bands, a newspaper ad called it “the place to come when you’re durn near broke and you wanna have fun.”
Mitla Cafe
602 N. Mount Vernon Ave., San Bernardino; 909-888-0460, mitlacafesb.com
Founded: 1937
About: Throughout its 87 years, this family-run eatery has been a local hangout as well as go-to place for chile relleno, menudo and other Mexican favorites. Its history hangs on the walls of its dining room and was related in a 2021 segment of “CBS Sunday Morning.”
Its founders were Lucia Rodriguez and her first husband Vincente Montaño, who died a year after opening. Lucia and second husband Salvador Rodriguez ran the place for decades and passed it on to their descendants. They are said to have mentored Glen Bell, who would go on to found Taco Bell, when he opened a hamburger stand across the street in the early 1950s.
About that time, the Mitla Cafe was recommended by food critic Duncan Hines, who wrote a dining guide for travelers and is now best known for licensing his name to a cake mix.
The couple were active in their community, and their restaurant became a meeting place for movers and shakers such as Sen. Alan Cranston, U.S. Rep. Edward Roybal and United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez.
Moment in history: Pop singer Rosemary Clooney, who had an aunt living in San Bernardino in the 1950s, was reported to be a regular.
Vince’s Spaghetti
1206 W Holt Blvd., Ontario; 909-986-7074
Founded: 1945
This restaurant serving hearty Italian fare launched a regional chain. It was started and still run by the Cuccia family, headed by Sicilian immigrants Frank and Rose Cuccia, who did the cooking, their sons and some in-laws. It began as a six-stool outdoor lunch counter serving french dip sandwiches, beer and orange juice.
Vince, one of their sons, opened his own location in Torrance in 1973. Other locations followed in places like Redlands, Glendora, Ventura. Most have closed, but the original remains, along with spots in Rancho Cucamonga, on Route 66 at 8241 Foothill Blvd., which opened in 1984, and Temecula, 28145 Jefferson Ave., which opened in 2003.
French dip is still on the menu, but people come for spaghetti served with choice meat sauce or tomato sauce and garlic or cheese bread.
Moment in history: In 2015 columnist David Allen reported that Ontario food servers have vivid dreams about work, such as pushing food carts up Euclid Avenue.
