[tovangar2]

Originally Posted by Tourmaline

While on the subject of restaurants, one source mentions "La Rue" or "La Rue's" as LA's first bona fide restaurant, circa 1852. http://www.saveur.com/article/Travel...ant-Milestones Have we seen any illustrations/photos/ephemera concerning this place that is reputed to have provided food that was "'poorly cooked but generally served.'"

The most commonly held idea we kept seeing journalists talk about was the first restaurant in Los Angeles, and most of them said it was in 1852 at a restaurant called LaRue’s. Our research shows that is probably not true. The first stand alone restaurant—if not earlier—is the one I have record of in 1850 with a restaurant called the Old American. Probably the first restaurant that was not free-standing was the restaurant of the Bella Union Hotel, which opened in 1849. - library foundation of los angeles


Harris Newmark remembers in "Sixty Years in Southern California",

"Once fairly well settled here, I began to clerk for my brother, who in 1852 had bought out a merchant named Howard. For this service I received my lodging, the cost of my board, and thirty dollars each month. The charges for board at the Bella Union—then enjoying a certain prestige, through having been the official residence of Pio Pico when Stockton took the city—were too heavy, and arrangements were made with a Frenchman named John La Rue, who had a restaurant on the east side of Los Angeles Street, about two hundred feet south of Bell's Row. I paid him nine dollars a week for three more or less hearty meals a day, not including eggs, unless I provided them; in this case he agreed to prepare them for me. Eggs were by no means scarce; but steaks and mutton and pork chops were the popular choice, and potatoes and vegetables a customary accompaniment.

This La Rue, or Leroux, as he was sometimes called, was an interesting personality with an interesting history. Born in France, he sailed for the United States about the time of the discovery of gold in California, and made his way to San Francisco and the mines, where luck encouraged him to venture farther and migrate to Mazatlán, Mexico. While prospecting there, however, he was twice set upon and robbed; and barely escaping with his life, he once more turned northward, this time stopping at San Pedro and Los Angeles. Here, meeting Miss 28 Bridget Johnson, a native of Ireland, who had just come from New York by way of San Diego, La Rue married her, notwithstanding their inability to speak each other's language, and then opened a restaurant, which he continued to conduct until 1858 when he died, as the result of exposure at a fire on Main Street. Although La Rue was in no sense an eminent citizen, it is certain that he was esteemed and mourned. Prior to his death, he had bought thirty or thirty-five acres of land, on which he planted a vineyard and an orange-orchard; and these his wife inherited. In 1862, Madame La Rue married John Wilson, also a native of Ireland, who had come to Los Angeles during the year that the restaurateur died. He was a blacksmith and worked for John Goller, continuing in business for over twenty years, and adding greatly, by industry and wise management, to the dowry brought him by the thrifty widow.

I distinctly recall La Rue's restaurant, and quite as clearly do I remember one or two humorous experiences there. Nothing in Los Angeles, perhaps, has ever been cruder than this popular eating-place. The room, which faced the street, had a mud-floor and led to the kitchen through a narrow opening. Half a dozen cheap wooden tables, each provided with two chairs, stood against the walls. The tablecloths were generally dirty, and the knives and forks, as well as the furniture, were of the homeliest kind. The food made up in portions what it lacked in quality, and the diner rarely had occasion to leave the place hungry. What went most against my grain was the slovenliness of the proprietor himself. Flies were very thick in the summer months; and one day I found a big fellow splurging in my bowl of soup. This did not, however, faze John La Rue. Seeing the struggling insect, he calmly dipped his coffee-colored fingers into the hot liquid and, quite as serenely, drew out the fly; and although one could not then be as fastidious as nowadays, I nevertheless found it impossible to eat the soup.

On another occasion, however, mine host's equanimity was disturbed. I had given him two eggs one morning, to prepare for me, when Councilman A. Jacobi, a merchant and also a customer of La Rue's, came in for breakfast, bringing one 29 more egg than mine. Presently my meal, unusually generous, was served, and without loss of time I disposed of it and was about to leave; when just then Jacobi discovered that the small portion set before him could not possibly contain the three eggs he had supplied. Now, Jacobi was not only possessed of a considerable appetite, but had as well a definite unwillingness to accept less than his due, while La Rue, on the other hand, was very easily aroused to a high pitch of Gallic excitement; so that in less time than is required to relate the story, the two men were embroiled in a genuine Franco-Prussian dispute, all on account of poor La Rue's unintentional interchange of the two breakfasts. Soon after this encounter, Jacobi, who was an amateur violinist of no mean order, and had fiddled himself into the affections of his neighbors, left for Berlin with a snug fortune, and there after some years he died.