Weekend Fun in Los Angeles: Visits to Pann's and Bob's Big Boy

During the week of the Noir City Film Festival and the TCM Classic Fun Festival we visited a couple of classic Greater Los Angeles area restaurants with friends. Here are a few photos!

We stopped by Pann's Restaurant after a visit to Inglewood Park Cemetery. Pann's, which first opened in 1958, is located on La Tijera Boulevard in the Westchester area of Los Angeles.

Pann's was designed by the firm of Armet & Davis to have in indoor-outdoor feel, with lots of glass, rockwork, and plants. The menu cover:

I read about Pann's in the book GOOGIE REDUX: ULTRAMODERN ROADSIDE ARCHITECTURE by Alan Hess. Information about the restaurant's architecture and history may also be found at the Los Angeles Conservancy website. (I support the LA Conservancy with a membership and recommend that anyone interested in the preservation of Los Angeles buildings and history do the same.)

The food and service were both excellent. One of my out-of-town friends liked it so much she went back a couple days later for her birthday!

Pann's features award-winning buttermilk biscuits which were as good as advertised!

A few days after our visit to Pann's my husband stumbled across the Vin Diesel film XXX (2002) on TV, and where was Vin eating? Pann's! The scene can currently be seen on YouTube, providing a great overview of the restaurant interior.

A couple days later we visited Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, which was built in 1949. The building was designed by Wayne McAllister.

I recommend a wonderful book, THE LEISURE ARCHITECTURE OF WAYNE MCALLISTER, which I purchased about a dozen years ago. It was written by Chris Nichols, who also wrote the outstanding coffee table book WALT DISNEY'S DISNEYLAND.

I grew up frequently going to a Bob's in Long Beach, California, with my grandparents, but there aren't many Bob's left now and I hadn't been to one for years, so this was a nostalgic visit for me.

I enjoyed Bob's but if I had to choose between these two restaurants, Pann's comes out ahead for both food and service.

I'll close this post with a shot of just under a dozen classic film blogging friends who met up for dinner at Miceli's in Hollywood that week!  I've written about Miceli's here before; it dates from 1949 and was even featured in the film NIGHTFALL (1957).

I hope this post will encourage anyone visiting Los Angeles to check out some of the area's longtime restaurants. Other L.A. "classics" I've written about here previously include El Cholo (established 1927), Philippe's (opened in 1908), Cole's (also opened in 1908), The Pantry (opened 1924), Musso & Frank Grill (opened 1921), and the Apple Pan (opened 1947).

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