This will probably be of interest only to those of you who grew up in Los Angeles…
The Pasadena location of Hamburger Hamlet closed a few days ago. The leaves only one Hamburger Hamlet — the one out in Sherman Oaks. This was a once-mighty chain of terrific restaurants and I have vivid memories of them. As a kid, I often accompanied by my parents to either of the two Hamburger Hamlets in Beverly Hills. (Some said then those were the only restaurants in B.H. with an all-black staff. My parents liked the liberalism but we went mainly for the good burgers. Great lobster bisque, too.)
I remember sitting with my mother in the Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood Village before she took me to see Bambi at a theater down the street. I must have been five or so and she was preparing me for the sad parts of the movie we were about to see. I didn't care about them. I just wanted more ketchup to put on my burger.
I took my first date to that same Hamburger Hamlet. It's no longer there but a few years ago when I wrote about it, a reader of this site mailed me an actual menu from around that period. For all I know, that may have been the actual menu that my date was looking at when she thought, "If he thinks I'm putting out for him tonight, he's crazy."
The one in Pasadena? Four of us went there for a bite after seeing Smokey Joe's Cafe out that way last October. The staff was awfully friendly. The decor was quite nice. The food? I'm afraid that after the original owners, Marilyn and Harry Lewis sold to a corporation, the cuisine began a downward descent from which it never recovered. Based on what I had that night, I'm not surprised we're saying bye-bye to them…but I still don't understand why if you own a once-great restaurant, you let it get that way. Here's an article about it.