Serving Pot Pie and a Bit of Comfort

In Pasadena, Beadle’s Cafeteria has always been the place to get comfort food: gooey macaroni and cheese, stacks of green Jell-O that defy gravity, chicken pot pie with a buttery crust and Thanksgiving-style turkey with stuffing on almost any day of the year.

Beadle’s has been serving this familiar fare since 1956. It’s a restaurant that on its best days, when it bustles with activity, resembles an upscale school lunchroom, with green plastic trays and rows of linoleum-covered tables. At these moments, it seems as if the restaurant could go on forever, just as it’s always been.

But change is coming. The family that has owned the cafeteria since 1967 announced late last week that it has sold Beadle’s.

“We’ve been losing money for some time,” said owner Jane Waas, who took over the business from her parents, Helen and Gordon Hamilton, in the mid-1990s. “The business has been going slowly downhill, and the last few months have been very hard. I knew we couldn’t keep going for a long period of time.”

Originally, Waas had decided to close the cafeteria today, but a last-minute buyer made an offer. “I’m relieved and I’m happy,” Waas said, “but it is a closing of an era for my family.”

At a time of fresh foods and fast fare, when even the local McDonald’s serves green salads, Beadle’s is a dinosaur among eateries in a city where residents are always searching for the next big meal.

“I was raised to believe that you can’t mess with the formula,” said Waas. “But because we haven’t made many changes, our business is dropping.”

Beadle’s has struggled since it moved a few blocks 10 years ago to the South Lake Avenue area, Pasadena’s busiest business district.

The restaurant is slightly off the avenue, in a location that is difficult to get to, and the lunchtime crowds that flow out of nearby office buildings have largely bypassed it for cheap, fast and relatively healthful places to eat. Lines are out the door at such chain restaurants as Baja Fresh, Rubio’s Grill and Panda Express. And even those seeking comfort food have other choices: Koo Koo Roo serves creamed spinach, baked squash and turkey pot pies, and Smitty’s Grill, which just opened on South Lake, offers an upscale macaroni and cheese with ham for $11.95.

Most of those who frequent Beadle’s Cafeteria these days are senior citizens, many of whom have been coming for 40 years or more. They dress up for lunch and dinner and arrive via bus or taxi, expecting a comfortable environment and a menu that never strays far from the familiar.

“I’ve been coming since 1956,” Michael Andrizzi, 76, said as he polished off the last of a plate of baked beans. “It’s got good company and good food, but some improvements could be made, and some dishes could be improved upon.”

It’s not clear yet how Paul Byoung Woo Lee, the Buena Park man who is buying the restaurant, will be able to turn it back toward profitability.

Lee said this weekend that he plans to keep Beadle’s, for which he said he paid a little more than $150,000, “the way it is.”

Lee has entered into a three-week escrow on the property, and Waas said she will stay at the restaurant through the transition.

Lee, who has been in the restaurant business more than 25 years, operating mostly employee cafeterias, said he will retain the Beadle’s name and most of its employees, many of whom have worked for the Hamilton family for 20 years or more.

Patrons are thrilled that the cafeteria will get another chance.

“The old people would miss it. I don’t know what they would do,” said Kate Bolt, 66, who took the bus from Highland Park for a bowl of vegetable soup and a serving of chicken a la king on Saturday. “It’s making my and a lot of people’s new year happy.”