The Brief

What is your favorite fast-food indulgence? Is it a classic Big Mac? A Panda Express Original Orange Chicken? Or maybe the Crunchwrap Supreme? Whatever it is, there is a good chance that it had its origins in the greater Los Angeles area.

“I was teaching at Purdue University in Indiana,” recalls food historian George Geary, author of Made in California. “One day I was driving down the highway and I noticed all of the fast-food places that were off the next off-ramp. There were about 14 listed, and I realized most of those were from California!”

Why Los Angeles in particular and California in general became fast foods’ greatest exporter is a multi-faceted question. According to Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Thru Dreams, part of the answer is simple — we are just pretty rad.

“California, it's always had this mystique around its effortlessness and coolness, and some of that has to do with the weather,” he says. “[It’s ] looser in terms of conventions, in terms of dress, in terms of conversation, in terms of the way of life.”

And nowhere is cooler than Los Angeles. The greater L.A. area alone is the birthplace of many chains: In-N-Out, Taco Bell, Fatburger, Panda Express, Hot Dog on a Stick, Orange Julius, Bob’s Big Boy, Fosters Freeze, Original Tommy’s, The Blimp (now Carl’s Jr.), Wienerschnitzel, Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, and Pioneer Chicken. Farther afield is San Bernardino’s McDonald’s, San Diego’s Jack-in-the-Box, and Yermo’s Del Taco.

A menu is displayed in the drive thru at an In-n-Out restaurant.

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Justin Sullivan

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How did it happen?

But we cannot claim to be the founders of fast foods as a concept. According to John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle, authors of Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age, fast service food has been around worldwide since the Industrial Revolution in the form of coffee shops and oyster houses.

During the 1880s, soda fountains and drug store counters across the country began serving quick soup and sandwich meals along with popular novelty drinks and ice creams. Then there were inexpensive fair foods — the hot dogs and hamburgers served at county fairs and amusement destinations like Coney Island and the Santa Monica Pier.

Chandler argues that the first true modern fast food restaurant was White Castle, which opened in Wichita, Kansas in 1921. “1920 was famously the first year that more people showed up on the U.S. Census as living in cities instead of outside of cities,” he says. “People were congregating in urban centers and working at factories, and a lot of this had to do with electricity and just general movements of populations. And so, people needed to eat something.
They were working in factories every day and they wanted something that was quick and cheap.”

Growing road system

As more and more people drove and commuted to work, those tried and true fair food favorites began to be sold in roadside shacks along America’s burgeoning highway system.

The Rite Spot road stand.

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Courtesy of the Archives, Pasadena Museum of History (JAH Rite Spot 11-06-1933)

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In Southern California, these included the Rite Spot in Pasadena, where owner Lionel Sternberger is said to have invented the cheeseburger in the 1920s. Southern California, with its perfect weather, spread out populace, and pioneering spirit was the ideal place for small business owners to open their very own “road food” stands.

A plaque commemorating the cheeseburger's invention in Pasadena in the sidewalk outside the L.A. Financial Credit Union at 1520 W. Colorado Blvd.

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Courtesy Pasadena Chamber of Commerce

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“Most stands were seasonal since, until the late 1920s, motoring was primarily a warm-weather proposition. Only in mild-winter states like California and Florida did stands operate all year,” Jakle and Sculle write.

“Highway selling was ideal for entrepreneurs willing to experiment with limited capital. The roadside stand … was hailed as one of America’s last ‘frontiers’ for independent businessmen. Most stands were built by their owners, the capital invested largely that of ‘sweat equity.’”

Driving change

And then there was SoCal’s early embrace of car culture, and the popularity of drive-ins, staffed with pretty carhops, and high fat, highly caloric comfort food at an affordable price.

A carhop at Bob's Big Boy, located at 4211 W. Riverside Drive in Burbank, serves a couple in their car.

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Valley Times Collection at Los Angeles Public Library

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“In the 1930s in Southern California there developed a remarkable phenomenon in the food service business,” Ray Kroc, who took McDonald’s to the stratosphere, recalled, according to Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. “It was the drive-in restaurant, a product of the Great Depression’s crimp on the free-wheeling lifestyle that had grown up around movie-happy Hollywood. Drive-ins sprouted in city parking lots and spread along canyon drives. Barbeque, beef, pork and chicken were the typical menu mainstays, but there was an endless variety in approaches as feverish operators hustled to outdo each other.”

A photograph of U.S. President John F. Kennedy at a McDonalds restaurant hangs on a wall at the world's oldest-operating McDonald's fast food restaurant on its 50-year anniversary on Aug. 18, 2003 in Downey.

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But it was not until L.A.’s boomtime in the 1940s that we truly became the epicenter of fast food innovation, starting with “Dick” and Maurice “Mac” McDonald, who opened the first McDonald’s in San Bernardino in 1940.

“California takes over the story,” Chandler says of the 1940s. “After World War II, there was obviously a ton of growth. The end of the war brought the end of rations for steel and for gasoline and for beef. And you had a lot of government spending that was focused on building highways and infrastructure. And a lot of that happened in California because of defense spending.”

Southern California’s unique lifestyle also contributed to the need for fast food. “The building of the suburbs is huge, the growth of the highways, and that introduces all these other facets — the rise of two income households, more women are joining the workforce,” Chandler says.

“So, the erosion of traditional gender roles when it comes to making dinner, the rise of commutes, make it so that you're kind of eating on the go and there's more distance between work and home. So, a lot of these things create a need for someone to step into the gap here and fast food places do that.”

A troop of Boy Scouts wait in the parking lot of a Taco Bell, possibly awaiting their turn to march in the Chinese New Year parade, San Gabriel.

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Steven Gold

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Los Angeles Photographers Collection / Los Angeles Public Library

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Dreamy entrepreneurs of all stripes flourished in this heady environment, where taking risks, whether it involved the space race or mom and pop startups, was encouraged. “Southern California is a place where people innovate,” says food writer Katherine Spiers, of How to Eat L.A.

The innovations in fast food came fast and furious in the post-World War II era. The McDonald brothers pioneered a new kind of assembly line food production, which they coined their “speedee service system,” maximizing efficiency and convenience. Every menu item was standardized — only two pickles per hamburger, no exceptions. “If we gave people choice, there would be chaos,” Dick McDonald explained, per McDonalds: Behind the Arches.

In-N-Out Burger

Out in Baldwin Park, Esther and Harry Snyder opened the first In-N-Out Burger in 1948, which along with their contemporary Jack in the Box (founded in San Diego in 1951) revolutionized the drive-thru system we now see as the fast food norm.

An In-n-Out fast food restaurant in Encinitas on May 9, 2022.

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Reuters

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“What was unique about them both is that when they started, they both were drive through only,” Chandler says. “So, you didn't get out of your car and walk up to a window, you just drove through. And In-N-Out in particular had a two-way speaker that was built by Harry Snyder in his garage, which is its own kind of classic tinkering-in-your-garage American innovation story that we tend to love.”

Fatburger

Los Angeles was also home to a particular brand of enterprising visionaries, who may not have been given the capital, or chance, to flourish in other parts of the country due to racism and sexism. In 1948, Lovie Yancey and a partner opened Mr. Fatburger on Western Avenue. Initially a three-seat counter made of scrap metal, Yancey soon bought out her partner, changed the name to Fatburger and worked tirelessly to make it a smashing success.

“She apparently really loved working in the restaurant,” Spiers says. “And she would work 20-hour days and sleep under the counter sometimes. She kept having people knocking on the door after they were closed at a reasonable hour. So, she was like, ‘well, I want to feed people. Guess I'm staying open late’.”

Yancey also tapped into post-war America’s obsession with large portions of food for a low price. “There was a real efficiency in American culture and in American cuisine at the time, the idea that you could just have an enormous burger and that would be your meal was exciting,” Chandler says.

“It had everything you needed kind of fit into this space age, high industry mood of the time, spirit of the time. And so Fat Burger was a big burger. It still is a big burger. And people were interested in something that was a challenge to eat — something you needed two hands to eat — that was appealing.”

Taco Bell

Fast food pioneers also often appropriated the foods of the numerous diverse cultures that called Southern California home. In San Bernardino, a young entrepreneur named Glen Bell fell in love with the tacos served at the Mexican American owned Mitla Café. In 1962, he opened the first Taco Bell in Downey.

“Glen Bell picks up this bit of cuisine and he is interested in it and he just kind of makes it his own mission to present it to the masses,” Chandler says. “And the taco was an exotic thing back then, and now it's the most normative dining thing next to the hamburger you can have in America.”

As Patt Morrison of the Los Angeles Times notes, there was also a spirit of collaboration among many of SoCal’s fast-food titans, who were more than happy to share their innovations with other upstart entrepreneurs. “There was a fraternity of us, and every one of us saw the McDonald’s in San Bernardino and basically copied it after the boys gave us a tour,” James Collins, head of Collins Food International (KFC) remembered, per Morrison. “We became good friends, and we all took our lessons from the McDonald brothers.”

Dump that guilt

By the 1960s and ‘70s SoCal-born fast food was expanding, spreading a unique brand of American culture throughout the globe. Today there are over 38,000 McDonald’s, 8,500 Taco Bells, and 3,100 Carl’s Jrs. And while some Californians may feel guilty for introducing the oft-maligned, problematic fast food universe to the world, Geary has come to terms with his love of a quick meal.

While attending a high-end cuisine conference in 1995, he found himself at a dinner at a grand Philadelphia train station. But there was one problem, the caterers had messed up, and there was no food. “I was sitting with Julia Child and she's like, ‘we're hungry!’ Because it was a train station, they had a McDonald's. So, a few of us got up and I thought, ‘okay, I guess it's okay to eat the fast food in front of these people.’ And then Julia Child ate French fries,” Geary recalls. “And I thought, ‘you know what? If she can do it, I can do it.’”

So next time you’ve got a hankering for a good ole processed burger with fries, instead of guilt, feel a sense of hometown pride. “We wouldn't have the American fast food culture that we have today without Southern California,” Chandler says.

“I think if you created a map and looked at all the chains that came out of a 45 mile radius in Southern California and stacked it up to other businesses elsewhere, not just in fast food, but in any industry, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of things that really compete in terms of name recognition and endurance and excitement than what's grown out of Southern California's fast food boom.”

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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Astrida Valigorsky

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Perry Shields

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Courtesy Julian David Stone

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Courtesy Visit Pasadena

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Steve Jennings

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Courtesy Visit Pasadena

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.