The Brief

The news of the sudden closure of Andersen's Pea Soup restaurant caught the surprise of many who frequented the roadside family restaurant. 2024 marks the 100th year of the restaurant being in business.

Located in the city of Buellton in Santa Barbara County, Andersen's, in its heyday, served as a stop along the 101 Freeway for many families on road trips who were looking for a bite to eat and have some family fun.

The restaurant has been serving thick green pea soup ever since Danish immigrant Anton Andersen and his wife Juliette opened the restaurant. But Juliette’s tasty homemade pea soup from a recipe she’d learned in her native France couldn’t alone lure enough customers into the restaurant. So Anton and Juliette opened an inn, and Pea Soup Andersen’s became the stop for travelers through Central California.

Many who visited as children recall sticking their heads through the cutouts of the restaurant's cartoon chefs, Hap-pea and Pea-wee.

The two mascots became part of California's iconography due to the large billboards along the freeway, showing how many miles were left north of Santa Barbara or south of Santa Maria until you reached the restaurant, where a hot bowl of pea soup would be waiting for you.

The land where Andersen's is located is slated for redevelopment, so there is a chance the restaurant may return in some form. However, the location in Santa Nella remains open.

We collected memories from callers into LAist 89.3's AirTalk, LAist staff and pea soup lovers online about visiting Andersen's, and what made it so special.

Larry Mantle, Host of AirTalk

"I first went to Anderson's back in the 1960s. My grandparents took me on a short road trip up Highway 101 to visit California's missions. It was part of our elementary school program. We stopped at Andersen's and had a sandwich and split pea soup and a number of times over the years, I also stopped to eat there.

"It's been a while since I've had a meal at Anderson's, but I think for many of us, it's just been part of the landscape, and to think of it being closed seems very odd."

Mary, Glendora

"My memories of Pea Soup Andersen's were on a Wednesday, September 29th. 1954. It was our honeymoon trip, and we stopped there and had lunch at the counter, a bowl of split pea soup, and I think, meatloaf sandwiches. What I remember the most was I ordered a glass of milk. The waitress went over and pulled a handle and it was milk on tap and it was ice cold and delicious".

Rob, Mid-Wilshire

"One, the billboards telling you about the restaurant .... you could find your way to San Francisco with them. Two, unlimited split pea soup. It was all-you-could-eat when you got the sort of package meal. Also after eating, you'd be desperate to find a roadside exit around Salinas afterward."

John Rabe's treasured Andersen's mug

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John Rabe/LAist

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John Rabe,  Production and Promotions Director

In honor of Andersen's, LAist's John Rabe made split pea soup last night from the recipe printed on his souvenir Andersen's mug.

 "There was just something so evocative about Andersen's. I don't even know what the other food was like. I only ever had pea soup there. And it was delicious. And having soup at a wayside inn on a road trip just brings back memories of childhood and warmth and coming in out of the cold. And I'm going to miss Andersen's."

Susan, Whittier

"My husband, being Canadian, and I, being Californian, drive our five kids up to Canada every year to visit family and pass by the Split Pea Soup. And I love Split Pea. None of my kids liked it, so for many years, they'd just say, no, don't pull over.

"And finally, two years ago, it was just my husband and I said, let's stop at the Split Pea Restaurant. And anyway, it was a flop for him. I enjoyed it, but it was almost empty. It was like being in a ghost town. So I could only imagine what it was like in its heyday. And sorry that it's closed for those that love split pea, but it's an easy recipe and I make it myself." 

Nick Roman, host of All Things Considered

"My parents stopped there when my sisters and I were kids. I can’t say I was a big fan of pea soup — it’s an acquired taste — but we liked the burgers, fries, and ice cream shakes. We also liked poking our heads through the wooden cut-out of Hap-pea and Pea-wee outside the restaurant so our parents could snap our photos.

"I stopped there less often as I got older. Now, I can’t remember the last time I stopped at Pea Soup Andersen’s.

"And now Pea Soup Andersen’s is closed, and I’m left with my memories of visits long ago. But you’re not. There is another Pea Soup Andersen’s! It’s off Interstate 5 in Santa Nella in the San Joaquin Valley. Next time I’m driving north, I’ll stop. That’s a promise."

The federal financial aid process opened this past week for students applying to college for next year. But for many California students, a source of state financial help remains untapped.

In 2022, the state launched the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program, also known as CalKIDS, and began creating investment accounts for more than 6 million children in the state to use for higher education.

Babies born on or after July 1, 2022, can get up to $175 in their accounts, while low-income public school students can claim up to $1500.

In Los Angeles County, about 1.1 million public school students are eligible for the accounts, but fewer than 20% of kids have claimed them, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of California’s ScholarShare Investment Board. The claim rate is even less for babies — about 11%.

“The money itself, it has a long trajectory. So you have these newborns, and there's not a sense of urgency among some parents; they know the account's there, it’s been created. Parents are busy,” DiBenedetto said.

There is no deadline to claim the money, which is already growing in the investment accounts. (You do have to use the money by age 26). But DiBenedetto says kids are more likely to see themselves as college-bound if they have it — and will be able to watch the account grow over time.

“ You talk to second-and third graders who are like, ‘I'm gonna go to UC Santa Barbara,’ ‘I'm gonna go to Cal Berkeley,’” she said.

The state is working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and other school districts to get students signed up.

The city’s top financial adviser is recommending that the Los Angeles City Council deny a police department request to procure 300 additional vehicles for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.

The report, submitted to the council Monday by City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, found that the L.A. Police Department would have enough vehicles to temporarily expand its fleet during the Games without the additional cars.

LAPD officials had previously requested around $31 million, arguing the additional officers deployed for the Games will need additional vehicles for their police work.

But Szabo disagreed in his report, finding instead that the department would soon have a large enough fleet.

“Given the current available vehicles and new vehicle procurements which have already been funded, it is not recommended to authorize the procurement of any additional police vehicles for the 2028 Games deployment,” Szabo wrote.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment on the city administrative officer’s report. Previously, the department has emphasized that its request seeks only to temporarily expand its fleet, with plans to retire old vehicles after the Games.

The police department has offered different estimates of how many additional vehicles it will need to patrol the Olympics. Two months after the LAPD asked for an additional 300 vehicles, the department released another report estimating an even higher need: 576 police vehicles.

Either way, Szabo’s report found that more than 1,100 police vehicles not yet in use by the department were funded in the past three budget cycles. He said those should be sufficient for the Olympics.

When you sit down at Birria Pa La Cruda in El Sereno, you might be expecting one thing. What you'll leave talking about is something else entirely, and it's just as good.

Take the mushroom quesataco. It starts with a tortilla brushed with avocado oil and griddled until lightly crisp, then layered with a thin skirt of cheese and a smooth smear of refried red kidney beans. On top goes a heap of shimeji mushrooms braised in a house-made salsa verde, mild, nutty and savory with a bright finish.

It's a slight departure for chef Carlos Jaquez, who spent seven years building a reputation for the birria de res at his popular pop-up. Now, at his new brick-and-mortar just blocks from where he got his start, he's serving his much-loved birria alongside several vegetable-focused dishes — including this one.

You get the sense that Jaquez has been refining each one for years through his pop-up, his work as a private chef and his high-end dining background at Otium and Bestia.

Homegrown talent

Jaquez grew up in El Sereno and launched Birria Pa La Cruda (which means “for the hangover” in Spanish) as a Sunday pop-up in 2019. Over the years, he's drawn on everything from his family's cooking to his Indigenous roots, to the bounty of local produce, building a repertoire that showcases the full range of his influences. His new place, on Alhambra Road near Cal State L.A., is his chance to prove it.

Carlos Jaquez, chef and owner of Birria Pa La Cruda, draws on the El Sereno community where he grew up and a wide range of culinary influences.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"I don't wanna just be the birria guy," Jaquez said. "If people know me for just the birria, then I'm sure that one day when I cook something else they'll be like, 'Wow, he can cook other stuff too.'"

The menu

The mushroom quesataco may be exquisite, but Jaquez's birria de res hardly takes a back seat. For example: the mulita. Two corn tortillas are dipped in spiced 12-hour braising liquid, and the beef he uses is cooked in a pot lined with charred blue agave leaves that Jaquez harvests from the El Sereno hills. The meat is piled on thick, then topped with cheese, resulting in a juicy, well-seasoned bite where all the flavors and textures meld together. It's a mouthful, but the mulita shows backbone, never falling apart bite after bite.

The sweet potato tamal, topped with date-almond mole and sesame seeds, served with red amaranth leaves and pickled vegetables.

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Eric Valle

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Courstesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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Where the birria is a constant, the tamal is expected to change with the seasons. Right now, it's sweet potato and organic yellow corn masa steamed in a banana leaf, then topped with a rich mole made from California-grown dates and almonds. It's entirely vegan, though Jaquez doesn't advertise it that way. It's served alongside pickled carrots and a small salad of amaranth leaves grown just outside the space and dressed in a confit garlic vinaigrette.

Amaranth was a staple for Indigenous peoples in Mexico long before the Spanish arrived. Jaquez, who attended Anahuacalmecac, an Indigenous-focused charter school in El Sereno where students learn Nahuatl from third grade through high school, wanted it on the plate.

"We were eating amaranth and tamales and maybe even combining them thousands and thousands of years ago," he said. "Serving that on a menu today is a reflection of the resilience of our roots."

California love

Jaquez believes the caliber of his cooking comes from using local ingredients, whether it’s tortillas and masa milled in Boyle Heights by Kernel of Truth or heirloom tomatoes from Valdivia Farms in Carlsbad.

Chef Carlos Jaquez's birria de res is braised for 8 to 12 hours before it's served.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"Its uniqueness comes from the locality and the quality of the ingredients that we're afforded because we're in L.A. and California," he said.

So, is it a taqueria or a restaurant?

"I don't know," Jaquez said. "It's Birria Pa La Cruda."

California’s district attorneys and the state attorney general will now have the ability to sue individual businesses that they believe are engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

But for some of its biggest proponents, it’s a hollow victory.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Assembly Bill 1776, known as the Compete Act, bringing an end to one of the most hard-fought political battles of the year. Unions and consumer rights groups supported the bill, but the state’s influential Chamber of Commerce fiercely opposed it and won several concessions to water it down.

Assemblymember Cecilia-Aguiar Curry, a powerful Davis Democrat, introduced the bill to modernize the century-old Cartwright Act, which regulates only anticompetitive conduct by two or more businesses. Many progressive Democrats, concerned about corporate consolidation of business in industries such as healthcare, ticket sales and retail, signed on as co-authors.

Newsom signed the bill along with six other small business-friendly bills on the constitutional deadline for signing legislation.

“We’re taking on predatory practices that drive up costs and shut entrepreneurs out — making sure California’s economy works for everyone, not just the biggest and best-connected,” he wrote in a release announcing his approval.

However, his signing message on AB 1776 was more circumspect.

“While I align myself with a stated goal of targeting anti-competitive conduct that harms consumers, workers, and businesses alike, we must be careful not to set the bar too low — dragging legitimate, superior business practices and products into the ambit of anti-competitive behavior,” he wrote.

He added that he expects judges and prosecutors to interpret and apply the law “in ways that penalize clear wrongdoing, without creating needless uncertainty.”

Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, a former sponsor of the bill, wrote in a post on X that Newsom’s signing message made Hepner pessimistic that the law would be effective.

“I foresee politicized antitrust litigation budgets, partisan allegations of weaponized enforcement, novel legal defenses that find new basis in the legislative history of this bill, and public officials caving to the concentrated private power that antitrust laws are supposed to put in check,” he wrote.

The group had helped craft the legislation for years, but changed its position when Aguiar-Curry removed a “private right of action” provision that would have allowed any individual or business to sue a company they allege is harming them through anticompetitive tactics.

Other supporters included the California Federation of Labor Unions and TechEquity Action, a progressive advocacy group that lobbies for regulation of the tech industry.

Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez said in a statement that the new law “gets us one step closer to building a more affordable economy for working people.”

The bill grew out of a three-year review by the California Law Revision Commission, which the Legislature had asked to study changes to the 1907 Cartwright Act.

The private right of action was one of the biggest sticking points for CalChamber, which argued it would “expose businesses of all sizes to a wave of frivolous lawsuits.” The group launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign over the summer to push to weaken the proposed law. Tech companies such as Meta and Google also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby legislators on AB 1776 and other issues.

Although Aguiar-Curry said she was disappointed the private right of action was gutted in the last weeks of the legislative session, she pressed on, and lawmakers passed the bill in the last days.

“California now has stronger tools to protect our small businesses, workers, and consumers and to make sure our markets work for everyone,” she said in Wednesday’s release.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.