Windmill Rescue Proves a Breeze
After preservationists and local residents lodged noisy protests over the weekend, the corporation that owns a distinctive Denny’s in Arcadia announced Monday that it will keep the restaurant’s towering windmill intact.
The unofficial city landmark, along historic Route 66, had faced demolition next week as part of Denny’s plans to remodel all of its restaurants in 1950s retro style.
But the plan prompted protests by community members who said the 32-year-old windmill restaurant, which used to house a Van de Kamp’s coffee shop, is the last structure of its kind in Southern California.
And that apparently was enough to save it.
“We took a look at it and said, if this is a concern to our community and they see it as a local landmark, then we need to keep it,” said Denny’s spokeswoman Debbie Atkins.
The company will move ahead with plans to close the restaurant next Monday for 10 days of remodeling and will incorporate the windmill into the redesign, Atkins said.
Those who participated in an animated demonstration outside the Denny’s on Sunday--complete with protesters wearing cardboard windmill hats--were overjoyed by the news.
“Wow!” said Chris Nichols, one of the protest leaders.
“I’m glad they’re so quick to respond to the sentiment of the community,” he said. “They’re so lucky to have inherited such a tremendous piece of work.”
Starting in 1967, the windmill on the northeast corner of East Huntington Drive and Santa Anita Avenue lured hungry customers off the road for a meal or dessert.
Back then, diners were treated to Van de Kamp’s famous baked products like Dutch apple pie, doughnuts and bear claws.
Earlier this year, the Advantica Restaurant Group Inc., which owns the Denny’s chain, launched a nationwide make-over to convert all its company-owned restaurants, including the one in Arcadia, into ‘50s retro-style diners--to be called Denny’s Diners. Advantica owns more than half of the 1,700 Denny’s restaurants nationwide, with the remainder owned by franchisees. So far 75 restaurants have been remodeled. Although most remodeling projects do not call for any building demolition or construction, the Arcadia site was an exception because of its distinctive feature, Atkins said. She said that Denny’s had been granted permission by the Arcadia Redevelopment Agency in June to eliminate the windmill tower, the only major structural change planned for the building.
But once word spread about the tower late last week, conservationists and residents quickly launched a campaign of telephone calls and letter writing to block the move.
“[Denny’s] wants retro,” said Joanne Willis, who participated in the demonstration. “Why not hold onto the real thing?”
About two dozen people joined Willis on Sunday and carried picket signs reading, “Honk your horn if you love the windmill,” as fox trot music played from a boombox. As onlookers strolled by the restaurant, demonstrators offered them powdered doughnuts from blue-and-white Van de Kamp’s boxes that carried the trademark windmill logo.
Charles Phoenix, a member of the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy, said the windmill tower, which characterized many of the Van de Kamp’s coffee shops that dotted the Los Angeles area beginning in the 1930s, is the last left in Southern California.
Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, said such battles to save coffee shop architecture may seem frivolous. But the windmill, he said, is an example of “the most authentic Southern California roadside architecture, and it’s architecture that local residents feel a genuine connection to.”
