Chasen’s Final Menu Offers Choice Slices of Hollywood History

Chasen’s restaurant, where Ronald Reagan proposed to his second wife and Jimmy Stewart held his bachelor party, served up one last helping of Hollywood lore on Sunday.

The famed Beverly Hills gathering place for the movie industry’s mightiest, which closed in 1995, auctioned its restaurant equipment and nearly 60 years of memorabilia.

A photograph of Frank Sinatra and friends at Chasen’s sold for $250. An autographed picture of comedian Jerry Lewis went to a bidder for $225.

Other items for auction included an autographed picture of Clark Gable, a telegram from Howard Hughes and a booth favored by Alfred Hitchcock.

Brian Peck of Los Angeles said his parents brought him to eat at Chasen’s for his 18th birthday, in 1978, and they sat across from Sinatra.

“My mother was going to try to get him to come over and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ all night, and my father was mortified,” Peck said. “He said he would never speak with her again if she did.”

Peck said he was interested in bidding on an autographed picture of Hitchcock hanging in Chasen’s office.

Chasen’s was opened by comedian Dave Chasen as a barbecue stand in 1936 and grew into a glamour spot for Hollywood’s elite. Regulars in its exclusive front room included Humphrey Bogart, George Burns and Gracie Allen and Jack Benny.

Maude Chasen, now in her 90s, continued to run the restaurant after her husband died in 1973.

After closing, the restaurant licensed its name to another group, which opened a new Chasen’s at a different location.

Ralph Woodworth, chief executive of Chasen’s, said business was still all right when the restaurant closed, “but its heyday had passed. Younger crowds thought it was kind of a bastion for their parents.”

The film industry had become more businesslike than the days when Chasen’s served as a meeting place for movie deals, Woodworth said.

“The star system wasn’t the same as when agents wanted to take their clients out to present them to producers,” Woodworth said.

Chasen’s VIP booth, reserved for the most notable diner, was on the auction block Sunday. The booth where Reagan proposed to future wife Nancy, though, is being donated to the Reagan Presidential Library.

The restaurant was sold right down to the etched windows, mirrors and doors. An antique tea cart went for $500.

Also on the auction block was a silver-plated serving tray used at Stewart’s bachelor party.

Chasen’s was known for hearty fare. Among its specialties were seafood on ice, creamed spinach and the hobo steak, a sliced New York slab of beef cooked in butter and served on toast points with souffled potatoes.

The restaurant’s chili was favored by President John F. Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor, who had it frozen and flown to Rome during the filming of “Cleopatra.”