Exploring Route 66 highlights in Pasadena plus a side trip to Hollywood
Route 66 through Pasadena in our RV trip
On the second day of exploring the Mother Road we toured Pasadena and the foothills areas of Southern California. While LowCal does celebrate Route 66 and the inland cities have embraced signage and history and there are some historic sites that have been restored or just not torn down. Yet.
Today’s goal was to visit some of the places in Pasadena including Fair Oaks Pharmacy which dates back to before Route 66 was even on the map.
Chicken Boy Muffler Man
The second muffler man of our trip was Chicken Boy. Chicken Boy is half man, half chicken and used to be a way to tell people about Chicken Boy restaurant. They served fried chicken. The icon has outlived the eatery as the restaurant closed in 1984.
Enter Amy Inouye who asked to save the icon and was instrumental in doing so. She led a team of artists to the roof and retrieved the poultrygeist. Unfortunately he was a bigger challenge than Inouye thought and she had him in storage for 23 years.
Eventually she moved to LA’s Highland Park neighborhood where a unique preservation zone existed and Chicken Boy was placed on her roof on October 18, 2007.
Sitting at the soda fountain in the Fair Oaks Pharmacy on Route 66
Fair Oaks Pharmacy
The Fair Oaks Pharmacy has been a focal point of South Pasadena’s history and business district since even before Route 66 came to be. The name of the establishment has been modified throughout history, first called the South Pasadena Pharmacy in 1915, then the Raymond Pharmacy in the ’20s and ‘30s. The mom-and-pop shop finally found its permanent name in the early ’40s which brings us to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain.
The building which houses the pharmacy was originally owned and financed by Gertrude Ozmun, an “entrepreneur of her time”, who paid $14,000 for the corner lot in 1914. She believed that South Pasadena was destined to become a successful retail area, one where she could make a safe investment.
The original pharmacy and building design was created by a Los Angeles architect named Arthur Benton, who was also responsible for several structures in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties.
Americans migrated to California on Steinbeck’s “Mother Road” in the early ’30s and ‘40s and brought prosperity to service stations, motels, and restaurants along the way, including our local Fair Oaks Pharmacy.
The pharmacy has a huge collection of all sorts of candy and treats, many of which are not very common in today’s market but had been common in the past. There are also toys and games and even fake noses that you can put your finger in. Hey, you buy whatever you want.
I was also able to procure a slide whistle and have since annoyed my fellow travelers with that. Joy.
The pharmacy has a beautiful neon sign in the front and the interior has a vintage feel. According to our soda jerk the pharmacy used to serve food before Covid but now they just offer the soda fountain.
What is a soda jerk?
It used to be that syrup and carbonated water were what was distributed and you’d have someone behind the counter who would mix sodas right on the spot. The disadvantage was that it wasn’t completely consistent but the advantage was that a creative individual could mix up something unique.
There was a huge official menu of drinks that the soda jerk, who was actually a great guy, could mix up for you. It was fun to watch him work his magic and the drinks themselves are really delicious. I’m not a big soda guy but, if there was a soda fountain, I might change my ways.
In the case of this place you can get a phosphate soda which adds a bit of a tart kick to the brew. Bill and I got cherry coke phosphates, Peggy got a root beer float and Kate got an egg cream. I had heard of egg cream sodas in the past and assumed it would have eggs, but it’s basically a fizzy chocolate milk sorta thing.
Lunch at Pink’s
Even though Pinks and Hollywood aren’t on Route 66 at all, our friends hadn’t been there so we thought we could give them a little tour. As part of that tour we drove to Pink’s, the famous Hollywood hot dog stand. The line wasn’t bad at all and we all got hot dogs for lunch because. Well. Pink’s.
The dogs are really good with chili that reminds me of the kind you’d get at Tommy’s, the famous chili spot in LA. This was a good, messy chili dog.
They have all sorts of offerings but we went there to eat hot dogs and, in particular, chili dogs. But there are burritos, hamburgers and so much more.
As if that weren’t enough it seems that VooDoo has set-up shop next door and we meandered our way over to see what we could see.
Donuts. Donuts is what we saw. And we each ate one, too. Because donuts.
There are donuts from traditional to one shaped like male genitalia but Peggy got a VooDoo Doll which is a donut shaped like a person with pretzel sticks in it representing the kind of torture you’d inflict on someone. With pretzel sticks.
The donuts were good and, as I researched this location, it seems that they’ve grown significantly and have locations all over the place including Texas, Hollywood, Oregon and more. So they’re not just a little local shop any more - they’re a phenomenon.
RV camping for your Route 66 adventure in the LA area
As for camping we’re still at Malibu Creek State Park and it’s a great somewhat central location for the trip. This is a relatively affordable campground but, and this is a big but, the spaces are relatively small and most of them are at a 90° angle to the road so backing in can be a challenge.
The park’s staff were super accommodating and let me choose a different site than we originally booked. Great staff and it’s a beautiful location and, of course, the weather was fantastic while we were there even though the rest of the country was freezing.
