[Chuckaluck]

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire

William Reagh/LAPL

Google Street View
The current occupants have made use of the old sign....
This was the Spanish Kitchen at 7373 Beverly Blvd.....

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The subject of the Spanish Kitchen has been discussed before. Even though there can only be one "original," recall reading there may have briefly existed another iteration in Downtown LA. Article below mentions another "Spanish Kitchen" on La Cienega. How about MacArthur Park (bottom right)? Related? Imitator? Or just one of many kitchens serving Spanish/Mexican cuisine in the '30s?

Unknown date:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrolibraryarchive -- Stylized version of same Hotel Park Vista? 622 S. Alvaradoebay

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Excerpts from the '86 LA Times Article http://articles.latimes.com/print/20...local/me-then1:

Tall tales concocted from the Original Spanish Kitchen

After a 'Closed for Vacation' sign was hung in 1961, the Beverly Boulevard restaurant never reopened. Rumors spread of guns and ghosts, but the real culprit was a love story.
Closing up one night in 1961, workers at the Original Spanish Kitchen on Beverly Boulevard set out silverware, saltshakers and napkins at each table and neatly stacked the chairs.

And there the settings and chairs remained, unmoved for more than a quarter of a century.
A "Closed for Vacation" sign, hung outside that night, gave no clue that the restaurant would never reopen.
So what happened?

One rumor held that the owner had been shot to death inside and that his wife had wanted the place left undisturbed until the killer was caught.
Some believed the restaurant was haunted. There were stories of knives flying in the night.
The TV show "Lou Grant" set a murder mystery there.
But there was a quieter explanation.

"The truth is," The Times reported in 1989, "that this decaying building has simply frozen in time a moment of happier days in a love story of an elderly woman who has shut herself off from the world . . . "
The woman was co-owner Pearl Caretto. She and her husband, Johnny, had opened the restaurant in 1932, and it became a favorite of stars such as Bob Hope, Linda Darnell and John Barrymore. Mary Pickford, who had a special booth near the door, would bring in recipes.
Then in 1961, the husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and Pearl closed the restaurant to take care of him in their residence on the second floor. He died a few years later, and she could never bring herself to reopen.
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And, so, she said, "We did a clearing." In other words, she hired a psychic from Arizona to check for poltergeists.
The psychic found five ghosts. "The ghosts were coming after my mother-in-law -- oh, it's a long story," Dufourg said. "There was a nasty one. I think he was a sort of killer from the '50s."
The psychic, who charged $70 an hour, chased out the spirits in an impressive time of 30 minutes. These days, the building is ghost-free, more or less.
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