The Brief

Every regional idiosyncrasy has a story. Detroit’s signature square pizza was originally baked in drip pans repurposed from the auto industry. L.A.’s donuts come in pink boxes because Cambodian refugees who started the donut shops needed cheap materials. And so it goes with cashews on pizza, a salty, buttery, crunchy topping that has gained a cult following in the Inland Empire over the past half century.

The Inland Empire, while very much part of SoCal culture, prides itself on doing things differently from its neighbors. Sub sandwiches are called grinders, local restaurant chains like Baker’s and Farmer Boys are largely unknown elsewhere — and, yes, cashews reign supreme as locals’ favorite pizza topping.

The city of Redlands, located over 60 miles east of Los Angeles, is where cashew pizza originated in the 1960s, eventually spreading to neighboring cities like Riverside and Yucaipa.

Kirsten Morningstar, a professional recipe developer and Redlands resident, says, “It’s a point of pride for Redlands people to have our own cultural food, something we invented that’s all ours. It’s how you know someone’s from Redlands.”

Why cashews?

Similar to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, there is no “why”; the creation of cashew pizza was a fortuitous accident.

To understand cashew pizza, you first have to understand the Gay 90s, a former pizza joint near the railroad tracks on Colton Avenue in Redlands. And to understand the Gay 90s, you have to understand its owner, Dave Wilson, and his gregarious and whimsical personality.

Every town needs a local spot to bring people together; in 1960s Redlands, the Gay 90s was that place. Wilson and his wife, Lorna, bought the restaurant in 1967. Cutting his teeth as a cook in the Army, he renamed the restaurant Dirty Dave’s Infamous Gay 90s Pizza Parlor and revamped the menu but kept the 1890s saloon theme (the “gay ’90s” refers to the gaiety and societal progress of the 1890s).

Pizza was the “great leveler,” says Jerry Farmer, a longtime family friend of the Wilsons who wrote Dirty Dave’s Pizza Parlor: An Origin Story (Dirty & Me), about Wilson.

Dirty Dave's Gay 90s Pizza, Redlands, CA, circa 1970s

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Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

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Customers liked the Gay 90s for its cheap beer and tasty thin-crust pies, with recipes perfected by Wilson himself. People from all over came to eat, including college students and out-of-towners attending weekly summer concerts at the Redlands Bowl.

It was a beloved gathering place, and by all accounts, a dive: crowded and lively, the walls and ceilings lined with memorabilia. Roberta Gehring, a fifth-generation Redlands resident, recalls, “The train would come by and rattle the building, and [the staff] would say, ‘Hold onto your plates!’” The pizza was fresh and delicious, and locals loved the chaotic atmosphere.

(It would go on to make an indelible mark on American pop culture — brothers Les and Glen Charles, who attended the University of Redlands in the 1960s, drew upon the restaurant as inspiration for their TV show “Cheers.")

‘Larger than life’

At 6’4” and 200 pounds, Dave Wilson was a physically imposing figure who disarmed people with his impish charm and wicked sense of humor. He’d got the nickname Dirty Dave as a teenager, when he fought back against school bullies using hay hooks, leading other kids to say he was fighting dirty — though some assume the name came from his frequent use of foul language.

“He had this larger-than-life personality,” says Farmer. Wilson’s granddaughter, Stephanie Hemphill, adds, “He was a big papa bear.” 

Dave Wilson

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Courtesy Jerry Farmer

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Wilson had a penchant for stealing bites of everyone’s food. Friends, family, customers — no one’s plate was safe. “Quality control,” he called it. In the late ’60s, he turned this annoying habit into a business decision when, one fateful day, a customer’s pizza order forever transformed the Inland Empire pizza culture.

This customer was a regular of the Gay 90s, but nobody knew his name, including Wilson. One day, he arrived drunk, sat down at the bar, ordered a sausage, onion and pepperoni pizza, then asked for a packet of cashews from the concession rack behind the bar. Farmer writes in his book, “To Dave’s astonishment, the befuddled fellow ripped open the bag and dumped the nuts on his pizza. The look of pleasure in the drunk’s eyes must have triggered Dave’s bite-snatching habit. Dave reached across the bar, grabbed a piece of the poor guy’s pizza and crunched it down. Dave was utterly amazed. It was downright delicious.”

The Gay 90s special — pepperoni, sausage, onions and cashews, Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

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Courtesy of Dirty Dave's Pizza Parlor

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“Perhaps his body was just craving more salt,” Farmer muses. “Excessive alcohol consumption leads to dehydration.”

Wilson was stubborn and stern, and if you were close to him, he’d steal your ideas and claim them as his own. However this time, he gave credit where credit was due. He also had an astute sense of what people liked and strove to please his customers’ palates. He figured that, if he liked something, other people might like it too. He put the man’s spontaneous invention on the menu and called it the Gay 90s special, inspiring a culinary phenomenon that has stuck around for generations.

A new market

When the Wilsons’ house in Redlands burned down in the summer of 1971, they sold the Gay 90s and headed north to start anew. They landed in Washington state, where Lorna Wilson’s family lived, and opened the new Dirty Dave’s Pizza (eventually dropping the Gay 90s in the name, but not on the menu) in Olympia in March 1972. Dave Wilson passed away in 2013, but his children and grandchildren still own and run the restaurant, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022.

Wilson’s piano is still there, along with the 1890s theme and the eclectic mix of posters, old menus and photos on the walls. “So many places change with the times,” says Hemphill, who is the Washington restaurant’s marketing manager. “We want the menu and the vibe to stay the same. If you had a Gay 90s pizza in 1970 in Redlands and another one in 2023 in Washington, it will be the same, and that’s the key.”

Wilson’s legacy

The first cashew copycat appears to have been Don Frisbie, owner of Pizza Chalet, a now-defunct Inland Empire chain that had locations in Redlands and Riverside. Patti Johnson, who worked at a Pizza Chalet on Magnolia Avenue in Riverside in the early 1970s, clearly remembers her restaurant’s iteration of the Gay 90s Special, the #14 with pepperoni, cashews, sausage and onions.

Unlike with pineapples, a polarizing pizza topping, there doesn’t seem to be a large contingent of anti-cashew detractors. Rather, those who have tried it have quickly fallen in love and bonded with other cashew aficionados. However, there is some debate about which cashew combination is best (the Gay 90s special or a cashew Hawaiian) and which kind of cashews to use (salted, lightly salted, or unsalted). Everyone agrees that you should use roasted cashews and add them on top of the cheese in the final minutes of baking for a perfectly toasted crunch.

Morningstar, the recipe developer who now lives in Riverside, says cashews were a ubiquitous pizza topping in restaurants and at school pizza parties during her youth. Cashews, she says, are buttery and crunchy: “It’s exactly what pizza was missing.”

Dirty Daves, Olympia, WA.

Gehring’s son David Copher is also a huge cashew pizza fan — so much so that the Inland Empire resident brings cashews with him on extended winter ski trips to Colorado. At Pazzo’s Pizza in Colorado, Copher asks staff to add the cashews to the deep-dish Sicilian-style pizza toward the end of baking. This year at Christmas, Gehring got him a two-pound bag of lightly salted, whole cashews to ensure he was well-supplied.

Copher isn’t the only one to bring his own cashews to restaurants, either. Members of a Facebook group called “Cashews on Pizza” discuss their love for the topping and lament that they can’t find cashew pizza outside of the IE. People are seldom confused about its origins: Everyone knows it started at the Gay 90s, though they may not know how or by whom.

Gay 90's menu from 1972

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Courtesy of Jerry Farmer

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Washingtonians, at least those in the Olympia area, have gained a similar fondness for cashews. The area’s pizza places have followed Wilson’s lead and put the Gay 90s special on the menu. In areas not touched by Wilson’s influence, though, cashew pizza remains unheard of.

“It’s super cool that something as simple as cashews on pizza can bring a community together. It’s exactly what my grandpa would have wanted,” Hemphill says. “Dave wasn’t self-centered. He didn’t think of himself as an inventor of cashew pizza. He just wanted to feed people and make them happy.”

Heavy Manners Library, a beloved multipurpose event space on Alvarado Street, is hitting a big milestone. The organization, which hosts classes, music gigs and art exhibits, has outgrown its current location.

Defying the fate that has befallen many small operations in rapidly changing neighborhoods, Heavy Manners is staying in Echo Park.

Yulia Cymbura, head librarian at Heavy Manners Library.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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Book by book

Co-founder Matthew James-Wilson came up with the idea for the space while doing research for a book he wanted to write about the evolution of art in the internet age. During the process, he had an epiphany.

Why write just one book when you can provide access to hundreds of them? Why not start a library that doubles as an art space too?

“ You could imagine a gallery show happening in a library, or you could imagine a poetry reading happening in a library,” said James-Wilson.

An illustration by artist Patrick Kyle.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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Mixed media collages from artist Patrick Kyle's "How To Be Mean" exhibit.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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The name “Heavy Manners,” James-Wilson said, pays homage to a concept in reggae music that goes back to '70s deejay Prince Far I’s album Under Heavy Manners.

“ Sort of in reference to British colonial culture imposing this etiquette, or heavy manners, on Jamaican culture,” said James-Wilson.

Heavy Manners was just a couple of shelves when it opened in 2021, but through donations by artists and community members, its stacks grew.

The library has hosted more than 1,000 events, from drawing and sewing lessons to live music shows.

A room in Heavy Manners Library where events and workshops are held.

Interior of Heavy Manners.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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A small stage where events are held.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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“The space has taught me, as long as you can keep the calendar full and you can get things that people are excited about, people will share it with more people,” James-Wilson said.

Keep the calendar full

Carly Jean Andrews has been teaching nude figure drawing at Heavy Manners since 2023.

“Yeah, you have all the knowledge in the world on the internet, but it's so much more useful to just come here and have it be really literal,” Andrews said.

Carly Jean Andrews and Bijou Karman, instructors at Heavy Manners, posing in front of one of an art show.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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Bijou Karman teaches clothed figure drawing classes and has published zines and books of her fashion drawings through Heavy Manners.

“Today, I was here hand-assembling one of the books, and Carly was very kindly helping me assemble. It's a very community-oriented space where you actually meet people and learn new things,” said Karman.

Bijou Karman's recent art book "Images De Mode" is displayed near the entrance of the library.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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Changes on the block

Heavy Manners has been looking for more room to grow its library and event offerings.

The dream was to stay in the area and keep its relationship to Echo Park, despite the changes to the neighborhood, starting with the very block where Heavy Manners sits.

A book nook with a bench and a view of the outside street.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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The nearly century-old restaurant Taix is being demolished, while Silverlake Flea, which ran out of the French Bistro’s parking lot, has moved to Atwater Village.

“ It's a construction site that may be ongoing for a long time. You can sort of feel the sense of change happening, just on our block in general,” said James-Wilson.

Luckily, James-Wilson saw a nearby building on Sunset within Heavy Manners' budget and went for it. Their new home, about 400 feet away from the current location, is bigger and more wheelchair accessible. It also has an outdoor area that employees want to convert into a garden, or use for nature-oriented workshops.

Its current space won’t sit vacant though; Whammy Analog Media, a VHS video store expanding from a small backroom to a full-fledged shop, will be taking over.

A shelve with analog media available for check out.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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It takes a village

Recently, Heavy Manners put out a call for volunteers to help move its many books and zines in time for a planned mid-July reopening.

A "Free Zine Library" inside the space.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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“Because it's really close by, I'm kinda hoping to have just sort of a parade of people each carrying a box across the street,” said James-Wilson. “It takes a village to foster something like this, that is not lost on me.”

Various "Heavy Manners Library" prints.

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Dañiel Martinez

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LAist

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The newest Air Force One jet, gifted to President Donald Trump from the Qatari government, arrived ahead of schedule Friday to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

On Friday afternoon, Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747 plane that initially stirred controversy. The plane was one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government and raised legal and ethical questions after Qatar offered to replace the presidential jet last year. Trump said last May he'd be "stupid" not to accept the offer. Industry groups originally said the plane could be worth approximately $400 million.

Trump also spoke standing in front of the plane, thanking the Emir of Qatar.

The president praised the workmanship of the plane, describing it as the "world's most luxurious plane." He also called it the "largest Air Force One ever built," adding, "It flies further and faster than any Air Force One."

"This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before, probably even almost outside of an airplane," Trump said. "Nobody's ever seen anything like this, and in only 10 months, a timeframe no one thought possible."

The exterior of the jet is no longer light blue, silver and white — a fixture since the Kennedy administration. Trump unveiled the new red, white and blue color scheme.

"It was time for a change. … Everything was designed good. It was my taste," Trump said, saying that he approved the new color scheme, which reflects the American flag.

The VC-25B Bridge aircraft will now undertake its commissioning flights, what the Air Force calls a "final exam" for the plane. The plane was modified after serving the Qatari Head of State.

"Once these flights are successfully completed, the aircraft is officially 'commissioned' into the active executive airlift fleet and becomes available for presidential missions," an Air Force press release said.

The aircraft from Qatar will "serve as a bridge until the [long-term] VC-25B is delivered," according to earlier communications from the Air Force. The plane was delivered well before expectations. The Air Force originally estimated the plane would be delivered in 2028 but said by modifying requirements it could deliver the first aircraft in 2027. The modifications "were carefully crafted to prioritize mission over aesthetics, leaving much of the previous head of state interior layout minimally changed," the Air Force said.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach praised the delivery.

"Many thought it could not be done, but the United States Air Force was able to execute and provide a secure, reliable airborne command post on an accelerated timeline," he said.

Vice President JD Vance has delayed his trip to Switzerland to negotiate the terms of a peace agreement with Iran on Friday.

It's unclear exactly why the talks were called off at the last minute, with hundreds of journalists already waiting in the alpine city of Lucerne.

But the delay raises questions over the sturdiness of the memorandum of understanding to end the war, signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

It came as Israel continued to heavily bombard Lebanon, despite the agreement promising to end all military operations, including in Lebanon.

Lebanese media said at least 18 were killed in overnight strikes, and Israel said four of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon.

Here are more details about the agreement and challenges they face in this latest effort to end the conflict:

US lifts naval blockade

There was immediate progress after the preliminary agreement to end the three-and-half month conflict that has killed thousands of people across the Middle East, rocked the global economy and pushed millions more into poverty around the world, according to the United Nations.

The United States lifted its naval blockade on Iran.

The short memorandum of understanding also promises to end military operations on all fronts and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway through which much of the world's oil, gas and fertilizer must pass to reach global markets.

The agreement prompted President Trump to celebrate on Truth Social writing: "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!"

But there are still many potential pitfalls. Even before the agreement was signed, Trump made its fragility clear: "It's a memorandum of understanding," he said at the G7 summit in France. "If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head."

The document doesn't solve the underlying reason for why the United States and Israel went to war with Iran. It creates a 60-day window — extendable by mutual agreement — for the two sides to resolve the enmity that goes back many decades.

Israel remains defiant against the deal

The preliminary agreement promises to end all military operations, including in Lebanon. Israel has invaded and taken large swaths of southern Lebanon in an offensive it says is targeting the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, which has killed more than 3,800 people, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has made clear that Iran considers Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon essential. "Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end," Araghchi said.

Israel wasn't involved in the negotiations with Iran — though Trump said at a press conference this week that he had sent Israel a copy of the document before he signed it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant, saying his troops will remain in southern Lebanon for as long as Israel's security requires it.

The conflict in Lebanon is causing an extraordinarily open rift between Trump and Netanyahu. "He's a very difficult guy," Trump said of the Israeli prime minister recently said to The New York Times.

On Thursday, Israel's military released a new map ⁠showing an expanded area of southern Lebanon occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.

"Trump's agreement does not bind us," Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on social media on Monday. "We are not partners to this agreement that does not ensure our security."

Vice President Vance hit back at critics in the Israeli government, warning at a press conference that "Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time."

Trump signed the deal to avoid 'economic catastrophe'

The agreement promises "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts" — including in Lebanon, where Israel has continued its offensive. Iran and the United States also promise "not to initiate" any further war or operation against each other. Not long after Trump signed the memorandum, U.S. Central Command said Thursday it had ended its naval blockade of ships to and from Iranian ports, as promised in the agreement.

Iranian state media reported the country's national security council will suspend tolls paid by ships for 60 days, per the deal, but that ships must still request Iran's permission — through a newly established Persian Gulf Strait Authority, before passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which was once considered an international waterway.

Increased ship traffic through the strait will come as a relief to Trump, whose approval ratings have been sliding as Americans see soaring gasoline prices and spiking inflation. Last month Trump insisted he doesn't think about Americans' financial situation in his approach to Iran.

But this week he acknowledged at a news conference that he had signed this agreement because he "didn't want to see an economic catastrophe."

The memorandum gives major concessions to Iran

Trump has repeatedly called the Iran nuclear deal — formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — presided over by President Barack Obama in 2015 the "worst deal ever," and Trump abandoned the agreement in his first term in office. But the framework agreement signed this week hands major financial concessions to Iran that could ultimately go much further than the Obama-era arrangement.

The document says the U.S. will work with regional partners to create a fund of "at least $300 billion" for Iran's reconstruction and economic development. Vice President Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount.

It also promises that the U.S. will unfreeze Iranian funds and assets that amount potentially to tens of billions of dollars. Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN Iran wants to see the release of $24 billion.

These commitments do depend on further negotiations. But the Trump administration also plans to issue sanction waivers to allow Iran to immediately sell its oil. The waiver concedes a major point of potential leverage at the start of these 60-day talks.

And the interim deal also opens the door to ending all U.S. and international sanctions on Iran. Iran has been under a plethora of U.S. sanctions since the 1979 Revolution. The penalties have kept Iran cut off from the global economy, preventing it, for example, from accessing the international banking sector. This new pledge goes far beyond the JCPOA deal, which removed some sanctions in exchange for Iran reducing its stockpile of uranium.

The negotiation over Iran's nuclear program

President Trump has boasted he will achieve a much "better" agreement than the JCPOA. The substantive talks on this are yet to begin, but so far, the commitment Iran has made in the memorandum that it "shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons" is the same promise it has made for years, including in the 2015 nuclear accord.

The details of Iran's nuclear program are complex and technical. The JCPOA was negotiated over years by the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, with nuclear physicists and non-proliferation experts, and ran to 159 pages. Trump's framework was negotiated bilaterally by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — a property developer and the president's son-in-law. An Iranian diplomat who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly told NPR they believed the last round of talks with the Trump administration did not progress because "the Americans at the table did not understand the subject."

The U.S. had been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program before abruptly launching the bombing campaign with Israel on Tehran that began this war on Feb. 28. For this latest round of talks, Witkoff and Kushner visited the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn., earlier this month for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Has Iran come out of the war stronger?

Trump began the conflict promising to set conditions for regime change in Iran. "I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand," he told Iranians in a televised address on Feb. 28. "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

It was a nightmare scenario for the Iranian regime, to face down the bombardment from two of the world's most powerful militaries. The war killed more than 3,300 Iranians, according to state media, including top leaders, and pounded the country's infrastructure and armed forces. But the regime's survival, and its ability to target U.S. assets in the region and control the Strait of Hormuz, empowered Iran.

The country has learned "that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works," Bill Cassidy, Republican senator from Louisiana, said in a blistering attack on the Trump administration. He called the offensive against Iran "the worst foreign policy blunder in decades."

Iran's response forced the Trump administration to set aside the goal of regime change to focus on seeking a way to reopen the vital strait.

"The only 'achievement' of the ceasefire is the likely reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before the war started. And we will apparently pay Iran to do so," Antony Blinken, who was secretary of state under former President Joe Biden, posted on X.

Trump has countered critics by saying on social media that anyone who thinks he hasn't "been tough enough on Iran," when the stock market is high and oil prices are falling, is either jealous, bad or stupid. And Vance called on critics to "have a little bit of faith in the president of the United States."

But in a hard accounting of the war, the facts are undeniable: Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz gave it the leverage to secure from Trump concessions that unlock vast sums of money — even more, potentially, than under Obama.

And regarding Iran's nuclear program, the Iranians so far appear not to have offered Trump any more concessions than they did at the Geneva talks two days before the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive in February.

Now new negotiations are set to begin, and the Iranians will be coming to the table having shown Trump, and the world, the power they can wield over the global economy.

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has witnessed more than a century of American history, in all its heartbreak and majesty. Crowds have gathered around it in protest and in praise, to denounce American wars and hear great voices sing and speak.

Today, it's the center of a slimy controversy.

President Donald Trump said in April he found the water in the reflecting pool "filthy" and "disgusting." He authorized a no-bid contract to resurface the basin of the 2,000-foot long pool and paint it "American flag blue" in time for July 4th celebrations.

"I have a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools," the president crowed, before the National Park Service gave out no-bid contracts for sealing and upgrades.

After weeks of renovation, the project has cost taxpayers more than $14 million and … the reflecting pool looks green. And I mean green. Like the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day. But that river is dyed green for a day. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is green because of algae.

Look, algae happens. It's clouded the reflecting pool since it was first filled in 1923. Algae blooms flourish when sunlight falls on warm, sluggish water — like you'd find in a shallow, still pool absorbing the glare and swelter of a Washington, D.C., summer.

But a University of Virginia satellite analysis commissioned by the Washington Post saw more algae in the Reflecting Pool this month than at any other time in the past five years.

The Interior Department says workers have deployed "a state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler filtration system" to banish the algae.

"President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the reflecting pool for good," spokesperson Kate Martin said in a statement this week, "unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden."

That's a reference to a major project during President Barack Obama's first term to stop the pool from sinking and add a filtration system.

In these deeply divisive and partisan times, it's good to remind ourselves that many issues aren't just Republican red or Democratic blue. The Reflecting Pool algae doesn't care about our party lines. It's green, and it's not going anywhere.