Brown Derbies Ready to Duel at the Drop of a Hat

Prepare yourself for Dueling Derbies.

In Pasadena, Walter Scharfe is preparing to reopen the old Hollywood Brown Derby, replete with its original, celebrity-worshiping furnishings that have been in storage for a year and a half.

On Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire District, Dennis Bass is preparing to open the Brown Derby Plaza, a commercial center that includes the distinctive shell of the Original Brown Derby--the little hat-shaped restaurant that stood on the same property for decades until it was shut six years ago.

Both resurrected restaurants seem likely to end up claiming to be the real Brown Derby as they compete for the same kind of clientele: those enamored by the show-biz allure of Los Angeles.

Symbolically, however, that allure seems to have been diluted.

After all, it’s a long way, glitz and glamor-wise, from the axis of Hollywood and Vine to the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue in Pasadena, which is where the old Hollywood Brown Derby will reopen for business on Wednesday.

And in the case of the Original Brown Derby, the loss of gloss is far more apparent.

The Original Derby stood on the corner of Wilshire and Alexandria Avenue, across from the Ambassador Hotel, from 1926 to 1980, when its owner abruptly shut it down and left it languishing in decay.

Now, in a gesture to Los Angeles preservationists, the exterior of the Derby is to be wrapped around a restaurant in Bass’ new development. But it will not hold its former spotlight.

Rather, the 50-foot-by-40-foot wood and plaster hat has been installed in the rear of an orange and turquoise Art Deco commercial center whose most visible tenant is an upscale Jack-in-the-Box restaurant.

Of the two Derbies, Scharfe’s in Pasadena will be the first to reopen in a restored building at 911 E. Colorado Blvd.

The Hollywood Brown Derby opened in Hollywood in 1929, three years after the Original Derby, and reigned through the 1960s as a gathering spot of celebrities, studio executives and anyone who wanted to gawk at them.

The restaurant’s trademarks were its “Wall of Fame” of caricatures of celebrities and its numbered black leather booths with countless legends, like Booth 5, where Clark Gable was said to have proposed to Carole Lombard.

In the ‘70s, the Hollywood Derby lost much of its celebrity and entertainment industry trade as some studios and record companies left Hollywood for other parts of Los Angeles. When the building was sold in 1985, Scharfe was unable to negotiate a satisfactory lease with the new owners and decided to move. He said he chose Pasadena for its sense of tradition and pace of commercial development.

Some Disappointment

The president of Hollywood Heritage, Richard Adkins, said he was disappointed that the Derby had not reopened in Hollywood, but added, “The important thing is that (the memorabilia) was saved somewhere.”

Scharfe said he expects tourists to make up the bulk of his business and said they have been telephoning steadily.

“They are more interested in how it looks inside than where it is,” he said.

With its dark booths and chairs offset by crystal chandeliers, the former Hollywood Derby--which Scharfe now simply calls the Brown Derby--indeed looks like its old self.

Besides the Hollywood furnishings, the Pasadena Derby contains numerous sketches of Oscar winners that had been housed in the Beverly Hills Brown Derby, which opened in 1931. That Derby, which Scharfe bought in 1975, was shut down in 1982 and is today the site of a commercial development.

Opening Planned

Back on Wilshire, the Original Derby--renamed the Brown Derby Plaza Restaurant--is expected to open early next year once a lease is signed with what Bass called “a major restaurant.”

Ruthann Lehrer, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that encourages revitalization of landmarks and had been active in attempting to preserve the Original Derby, said her group is happy that the building has been saved.

However, the group is disappointed with the placement of the Derby, she said.

“It is drowned in other commercial activity. It no longer has a prominent place on Wilshire and in fact is hard to see.”

Already Sparring

There already appears to be some sparring between the two restaurants over the use of the Brown Derby name.

Bass said he is naming his after “our trademark, Brown Derby Plaza,” and that he will lease the restaurant to an operator capable of “putting together a group of actor-actress types who will start coming once again to the Brown Derby.”

Scharfe said he may file a copyright-infringement suit to stop Bass.

“We are not going to let anybody else use that name,” Scharfe said.