Haven't done one of these in a while…but my memory was just jogged by the news that Pea Soup Andersen's restaurant in Buellton, California is on the market. $4.7 million and it's yours. And if that price seems steep, just remember that it comes with all the pea soup you can eat.
The news item I just linked to tells you a little about the history of the place. Here's some of it…
Pea Soup Andersen's was founded by Anton and Juliette Andersen, and was bought in 1999 by Milt Guggia, who opened a second location in Santa Nella further north off the 5 freeway in 2007. The Buellton restaurant's Danish style and European-leaning menu fit in well with nearby Danish-themed town Solvang, which has for decades been a popular destination for weekend getaways from L.A.; the property's signature cartoon chefs Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee were even drawn by Disney-trained Angeleno Milt Neil after World War II.
Here's my history with it: Two or three times in the sixties, my parents and I took a vacation to a little city called Pacific Grove that's up to the north in California, kind of halfway between Carmel and Monterey. All of what follows is my memory of the place from the last time I was there, which I think was around 1967. One assumes it's changed.
There was a little motel we loved about two blocks from a beach in Pacific Grove that, at least when we were there, was unspoiled and usually devoid of many beachgoers. The best rooms at the motel — and we always got one of these — were in the back where you had a view of a cemetery. Every morning, deer of all ages (but some very young) would come down to graze on the grass at that cemetery. Pacific Grove was famous for its swarms of butterflies so you'd awaken to scenes of deer and butterflies out your window. That was about as pretty a picture as I've ever laid eyes upon if you don't count the first time I saw Mary Tyler Moore in person.
So we visited the beach and we drove around Pacific Grove and we ate at several small, mom-and-pop seafood restaurants there. I remember the first time we dined at one, I looked at the menu and couldn't find anything I wanted to eat. That was until a helpful waitress informed me that in these parts, shrimp were known as "prawns." I devoured a lot of "prawns" on these trips.
We'd stay there a week and there'd be side trips into Carmel and Monterey. In Monterey, I found a great used book store that sold comic books for a nickel each, six for a quarter, and I scored about a hundred old DC issues I needed. Many of my happy childhood memories involve such finds…and my father's willingness to drive me to such stores and wait while I rummaged. One day of each Pacific Grove trip, we'd drive into San Francisco and browse downtown and go to Fisherman's Wharf where I'd eat more "prawns."
On the way to and from this vacation spot, we'd take the 101 freeway and we'd always time our travel so we'd hit Buellton at the proper hour to dine at Pea Soup Andersen's. Buellton, which as far as I know is renowned for nothing more than this one eatery and a few wineries, is 138 miles northwest of Los Angeles and about 40 miles northwest of Santa Barbara.
It's also four miles from Solvang, a charming little town that (I hope) still looks like a quaint Danish community. We'd detour there either on the way north to Pacific Grove or the way back. I remember us getting some great pastries there and I bought a handmade kazoo which I still have…somewhere.
But the big stop was Buellton for Andersen's split pea soup, which was very delicious in that little cafe, not so delicious when my mother bought the canned version at our local supermarket. It was also delicious when my mother approximated it at home via a recipe she got somewhere — where, I dunno — that purported to be the actual Andersen's recipe. If it wasn't, it was darn close.
When there's no ranging Pandemic in the land, I seem to find myself in Santa Barbara about once a year. In the seventies, I went up there several times to visit with some or all of the following people who then lived if not in that lovely city, fairly nearby…
There was Carl Barks, the creator of some of the best comics ever done in the "funny animal" genre — or in his case, "funny ducks." There was my friend Russell Myers, who wrote and drew the newspaper strip Broom-Hilda and who is still (!) writing and drawing the newspaper strip Broom-Hilda, though not from California. And there was my wonderful friend and collaborator, Dan Spiegle, who I think was one of the ten best comic book artists who ever lived and one of the three nicest. Don't ask me to name the others on those lists.
In the years since, I've gone up there to speak at U.C. Santa Barbara or to see friends. Whenever I've been there since '67, I toy with the idea of driving the 40 miles up to Buellton for lunch at Pea Soup Andersen's and I think, "Forty miles each way…that's not so bad." I don't know why I have such fond memories of that place. I know I connect it with good memories of being with my parents but I have plenty of other places that are much closer where the memories are as fond or fonder. A few of them, I can even walk to from my home.
But I think about a quick (okay, not-so-quick) jaunt to Buellton and then I remember that it isn't just eighty miles round-trip but that I usually have to drive the 105 miles back to Los Angeles that night. And there's also my fear that the place might now be a dump and/or the pea soup might not be as wonderful as it was fifty-three years ago. I probably wouldn't be comparing it to my memories of the soup there and then but to my mother's exquisite simulation of it.
Plus, I can go there but I can no longer go there with my parents…and then I think of all the great restaurants I like in Santa Barbara which aren't forty minutes away…
…and I don't go. Like I said, I haven't been there since around 1967.
Still, I had a little jolt at the news that it's up for sale and that the realtor is suggesting the hundred-year-old building is "prime for redevelopment." That's Realtor Speak for "Buy it, tear it down and build an Applebee's!"
Hearing about places I used to go that are torn down or turned into other places usually doesn't bother me. I don't know why this one does. If a new owner keeps it up and operating, I may just finally make a trip up there — once the Pandemic's over, of course. Remind me to ask Amber if she likes pea soup.