What’ll It Be? A New Location

Jack Dressler has made it part of his Friday routine. For the past 10 years, the 74-year-old has had a policy of eating at Norm’s restaurant on West Lincoln Avenue before going to the library.

Jack MacDonald, 85, who confesses to a weakness for Norm’s strawberry waffles, ate breakfast there at least five days a week for 15 years.

Both longtime customers are in for a disappointment. The Anaheim fixture soon will be demolished and moved a few miles away to make way for an $1.1-billion improvement of the Santa Ana Freeway.

“I’ve kind of gotten used to this place,” said MacDonald, of Anaheim.

So has 65-year-old Ed Perkins of Fullerton, who has been frequenting the family-owned restaurant since it opened more than 20 years ago. “I don’t like to see them having to move,” Perkins said. “They’ve been here a long time.”

Norm’s has a motto: “We never close.” But it will by year’s end, said general manager Steve Weber. He said a new restaurant is under construction at 1123 N. Euclid St., at La Palma Avenue. No opening date has been set.

Norm’s is a holdout on this stretch of Lincoln where a number of businesses have been boarded up or razed to make way for the freeway project.

Weber said the restaurant didn’t want to move, but “we really didn’t have a choice.”

Last year, the restaurant tried to fight the move with a petition, gathering signatures from more than 10,000 customers. In January, Weber said, Norm’s got a one-year extension.

About 90% of the 550 properties needed for the freeway project through Anaheim have been acquired, county transportation officials said.

The project will nearly double the width of the freeway--from six to 10 lanes, including carpool lanes--and revamp the interchange of the Santa Ana and Artesia-Riverside freeways.

The improvements will be paid with proceeds from Measure M, the half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1990, as well as state, federal and local funds.

Construction will begin in December with interchange improvements at the southern and northern ends of the project, then move through Anaheim, Fullerton and Buena Park. Completion is scheduled by 2000.

Meanwhile, many Norm’s customers vow to stay loyal. “I’m going to find it a little inconvenient,” said Dressler, of Cypress. “But I’m going to try it. Progress comes along and what are you going to do?”