The Paris Shuts Its Doors, and an Era Ends in Monterey Park

Henry Terashita, who used to be this city’s community development director, already misses his lunchtime visits for three pieces of whole-wheat toast and a bowl of soup.

Real estate broker June Butler and her husband, Ken, lament the loss of their once-a-week dinner outing for roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy.

Retired furniture dealer Hal Fiebelkorn and his gang of friends, known as the Kaffe Klatch, still grieve over the end of their morning gatherings for conversation and coffee.

Paris’ Restaurant has closed.

The talk of the town these days is the demise of the restaurant, which functioned not only as a place to eat but also as a community cracker barrel. For many, its closing symbolizes the transformation of Monterey Park by immigration in the last decade.

City Council members met at Paris’ for coffee. The Chamber of Commerce board scheduled lunch dates there. Rotary Club members sat in a certain section, Lions in another. The police chief, the fire chief, the mayor and the city manager often could be found there. So could firefighters and detectives.

‘It’s a Cash Deal’

On Dec. 6, after 37 years in business at 415 W. Garvey Ave., the landmark restaurant, with its canvas awning, padded booths and coffee counter, closed its doors.

The exact reasons for the closing are unclear. But Roland Soo Hoo of Monterey Park’s Jade Way Realty/Century 21, which represents the seller of the property, said: “It’s quite simple. Hong Kong people who own the property are selling to some Taiwanese people. It’s a cash deal for over $1 million, and escrow has not closed yet.”

He said he does not know what effect that sale will have on the restaurant business, which has been operated by Margaret Wong. She purchased Paris’ in 1986 and ran it the same way it had been run by the previous owners.

Wong, who has bought and developed several restaurants in the Los Angeles area since she arrived from Hong Kong in 1969, could not be reached for comment last week.

However, the city Planning Department has received an application from Gerard Ngo of Monterey Park, who lists himself as the new operator of the restaurant business. He asked permission to erect a sign for a restaurant featuring Vietnamese cooking. Ngo could not be reached for comment, and members of his family said last week that he was in New York on business.

Employees Lose Jobs

Annie Takahashi, who was assistant manager at Paris’ when it closed, said she didn’t speak directly to Wong but that she and the rest of the 15 employees were told that the business had been sold. “We don’t know who bought it or what they are going to do,” Takahashi said, only that the employees lost their jobs.

Paris’ was considered the last American restaurant in a city now well known for the scores of Chinese restaurants that have blossomed with the arrival of new residents from Asia.

To say “the last American restaurant” may be an exaggeration. Chains remain, such as McDonald’s and Marie Callender’s. But for many in this community of 62,000, the demise of Paris’ means that there are no longer any places to get American-style home cooking.

“They had nice roast beef, with no fat, and wonderful rice pudding and beef barley soup,” said June Butler, a 29-year resident.

The prices were cheap, and you never had to wait long for a seat. And residents knew they could go there and corner council members or city officials to air grievances, lobby for a zoning variance or just say hello.

Said Fiebelkorn, 75, an 11-year member of the Planning Commission: “If you were looking for somebody, you could probably find them in the morning at the Paris.”

Group Found a Home

Indeed, Fiebelkorn was there every weekday since 1970. His Kaffe Klatch group, begun in 1947, had tried four other restaurants over the years before finding a home at Paris’, where every morning a back booth, with an extension of tables, was reserved for coffee.

The informal group was made up of the city’s power structure, including Eli Isenberg, then publisher of the Monterey Park Progress.

“The Paris got to be a habit,” Fiebelkorn says of the group’s hourlong bull sessions, which usually began shortly after 9 a.m.

Sixteen to 20 people, mostly men, would stop by the Kaffe Klatch to discuss local politics or, more recently, to hear the details of a member’s latest motor-home vacation.

“It was a remnant of the history of old Monterey Park,” said George Ricci, who sometimes joined in. ‘(The Kaffe Klatch) was like the guys who were too old to rustle cows, who were essentially sitting on the porch and whittling.”

“A segment of culture has just completely disappeared, and there isn’t another place in Monterey Park where that’s going to be available,” said Fiebelkorn, who for 19 years has written a local newspaper column entitled “Kaffe Klatch.”

‘Felt Like Somebody Died’

A former owner of Paris’, Louis Tripodes of San Marino, had a similar reaction: “When I sold out (in 1986), I didn’t feel so bad. But when they closed it down, I felt like somebody died.”

Paris’ was first opened in April, 1951, by Paris Tripodes, whose family arrived in Southern California from Ohio in the ‘40s. Paris’ brother, Louis, joined the business by the fall of 1951. From then on, breakfast, lunch and dinner were served daily from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The food was American style, Tripodes said, although there were a few dishes in honor of the family’s Greek ancestry: moussaka, roast leg of lamb and Greek-style fish.

Before there were freeways, Tripodes said, Garvey Avenue was a main route to and from Palm Springs, and sometimes movie stars, including Debbie Reynolds and Robert Taylor, stopped at Paris’.

In recent years Paris’ had become a multiethnic gathering place.

Said Fiebelkorn: “The Paris could have probably lent a lot of leavening to the current situation in Monterey Park if it would have stayed in business. There’s no other place like it where the Orientals and the Caucasians could mix together and get acquainted with each other. It was starting to happen there.”

‘Property Value Too Much’

But businessman and Chamber of Commerce Vice President Fred Balderamma said: “The Paris was an institution, but property value is too much just to run a little coffee shop there.”

For 33 years, Eleanor Aufderheide waited tables there. “You felt like the place was yours,” she said, “and you took pride in it.”

In every sense of the word, Aufderheide said, it was a family restaurant--so much so that one elderly customer, who always wore a hat to Paris’ and was known simply as Mona Lisa, listed Paris’ as her next of kin.