Van De Kamps Bakery and Coffee Shop with drive-in service, ca. 1945. This restaurant was located at the corner of Fletcher Drive and San Fernando Road in Atwater Village. It was designed by local architect Wayne McAllister in the Streamline Moderne style with neon trimming the roof line and iconic windmill blades. The high-strutting rooster advertises Van De Kamps specialities . . . fried chicken and chicken-fried steak. Signs for Knudsen’s dairy products and Coca Cola are also displayed. Below, the drive-in is brightly lit on an evening in 1954.
Me and my friends uses to go there on the weekends and we would race our cars on Sanferando Rd then go back and have a cup of coffee and burgers and fries it was great. On night me and my friend drove in his purple 1958 corvette with a post on the side window wanted one white ford with or without hot sauce. There was a very fast white ford owned by a guy named Zeaka he had a driver almost everyone put their food trays down and flowed us to valley Blvd to watch the race our corvette won and his girlfriend kissed the fender on the corvette it was great
Graduated from Franklin high school in 1948. This drive-in was one of my favorite places to hang out with friends. Sorry it no longer exists. Anyway , had lot of fun there eating burgers and shakes.
These are all such sweet memories I found captivating while reading them, thank you all for sharing.
I too remember the VDC tradition while in high school with a group of friends or a special someone sitting in our vehicle and grabbing a bite, good clean fun! And yummy treats!
Ditching school at lunch and we went to van de kamps for burgers and onion rings in 1956! So much fun. John Marshall High School.
I lived in the neighborhood near Marshall High School. Van De Camps was our drive-in hangout where we would go on week-end nights for French fries with thousand island dressing and cherry cokes. It was a very calm and happy place! I graduated from John Marshall in 1963.
Thanks for your reply . . . wonderful memories of time well spent! And dining on those trays in the car was such a treat 🙂
To Richard, My best friends father worked to the same railroad at the same time
MY mother, over time worked in the drive in and the original restaurant in the 50s. ,same parking lot. My father worked in the bakery
Guess how the met
What a great family story!
Wonderful and heartfelt memories. My Dad and I had lunch there every day back in the 40’s when he was a roving inspector for Lockheed Aircraft, going from sub-contractor to sub-contractor. I had breakfast there every morning in the late 50’s on my way to work at the old JBL factory on Casitas – about five blocks away. The whole family gathered there after Dad’s funeral at Forest Lawn in Glendale. My world of ‘lost treasures’ includes the recipe for Van De Kamp’s Mocha Cake. I tried for years to find it or duplicate it. Gone forever.
Thank you for sharing . . . Van de Kamp’s was such a treat for us kids – and my dad’s absolute favorite was their coconut cake 🙂
I lived in Atwater Village in the 1950’s.
Question of the Day: Who remembers the wonderful coffee cake/pastry that (I believe) was called Almond Brittle? It was a round, flat “pastry”, about 10″ in diameter with a honey-like center full of chopped nuts. I remember also buying it in the bakery sections of the grocery store until the early 1970’s. I think it was only made on Fridays and was very hard to find on a regular basis.
We used to eat at this Van De Camps and the one in Pasadena in the 50s and 60s. I loved their spaghetti and my grandmother would always order the halibut dinner!
We used to eat there when I was growing up. My father used to work around the corner from there at the Southern Pacific Railroad Yards known as Taylor Yards. We would go there when we would pick him up for supper.
Any old Griffin’s car club members circa 1955 or family members around. I was a regular at the Van De Kamps drive in with the Griffin’s car club. I would like to reconnect with any members. Thank you. My name is Brian Ross, please e-mail me with stories, photos, or other memorabilia. Thank you!
I used to eat at this Van de Kamp’s restaurant about once a week with my parents back in the 1950s and early 1960s. I always had the lemon chiffon pie for dessert. Does anyone have their recipe? I’ve been trying to find it for years — it was the best!
my grandmothers name was Ethel Ryan. I have a very old photograph of her in a dutch outfit standing outside of the restuarant. Been trying to find out who owned it back then?
what was your mother’s name? my grandma worked there in 1959 and I’ve been reading her diaries of her working there!
Nick . . . I think this comment is for you 🙂 Thanks, Meg!
My mother worked at the VDK bakery through the fifties and early sixties. I often drove her to work at all hours of the night, from Lakewood during 1959 – 61. I would stop for coffee at the second drive-in the background w/o the windmill. Both buildings were brightly lit with roof edges outlined in blue neon. I remember dating Lori V. a car hop who worked there in 1961. Those were some fun filled days with really fantastic architecture, when anything was possible in America.
That’s also when the baked goodies from VDK were really, really good! (Not so much now based on what we recently bought at the market.) Going to VDK as a family and eating in the car with those silver metal trays that clipped on the window or over the front seats was such fun. And the blue neon, spinning windmill blades made it all seem a bit magical. Thanks for the comment!