I was born in Santa Monica, which is a city in Los Angeles County. As Wikipedia notes, Santa Monica is surrounded on three sides by "the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades to the north, Brentwood on the northeast, West Los Angeles on the east, Mar Vista on the southeast, and Venice on the south." On the west is this place called the Pacific Ocean.
My folks and I lived in West Los Angeles but we were in Santa Monica all the time. My father's office for a long time was in Santa Monica. My high school was a few blocks from the border between the two cities. I went to college at first at U.C.L.A. and later at Santa Monica City College. And we often went to The Penguin.
The Penguin was a coffee shop at the corner of Olympic and Lincoln. It opened in 1959 (when I was seven) but it somehow felt like it had been there forever. When I was aged 17-23, I took dates to movies out on Third Street in Santa Monica and then we'd go to the Penguin for a late dinner and/or ice cream.
So I have happy memories of being there with my parents and perhaps my aunt or an uncle. And I have happy memories of being there later with my first girl friends. It was a lovely place in the "Googie" style with friendly serving personnel, plus it had cartoon penguins all over, even in the men's room. I've never had a hamburger that was better than the ones they served at the Penguin.
Some time in 1988, I read in the L.A. Times that the Penguin was soon to close its doors forever. I hadn't been out that way in years and I instantly decided I had to go there one last time before it went away forever. Easy to say, maybe not that easy to do. It was a busy period for me just then and I kept putting it off and putting it off until one day when I suddenly began worrying I was putting it off too long.
That evening, I was supposed to take my current lady friend, Angela, to a four-star steakhouse in Beverly Hills and I asked her if she'd indulge me: Could we instead go to this cheapo coffee shop out in Santa Monica? I don't think she understood why but she agreed and we wound up having a very nice dinner there.
Around the time the check came, she even asked me, "Can we come here again?" I asked the waitress when the place was shutting down and the answer to Angela's question turned out to be "No." It closed a day or three later and the building then sat empty for a few years.
Around '91, it amazingly became an outlet for Dr. Beauchamp, a local dentistry chain that advertised that even if you had rotten credit, they'd give you some sort of payment plan for getting your rotten teeth fixed. The insides of the Penguin were gutted but they kept the big neon aquatic flightless bird out front. I think the city may have insisted on it. Every time I drive past it, that sign reminds me of the aforementioned happy memories.
And now comes the word that the Mel's Drive-In chain has acquired the property and is repurposing it back into its original purpose. The tables will have phone charging stations and there will be a juice bar and organic offerings…but if the Penguin had stayed in business, it would have all those things by now. Since the standard Mel's menu ain't all that different from what was served at the Penguin, it may be a very effective restoration.
This article will tell you more about it and show you some pictures. When it's open again, I'll go there with, I hope, realistic expectations. I won't expect it to be 1960 again with me sitting there with my parents and my Uncle Nathan. I won't expect it to be 1972 again with me sitting there with Lynne after we'd just seen Slaughterhouse Five at the Criterion out on Third Street. I'll be happy if the burger's anywhere near as good.