OPEN: 1936–1995
LOCATION: 9039 Beverly Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90048
ORIGINAL PHONE: CR 1-2168
CUISINE: American
DESIGN: Paul Revere Williams
BUILDING STYLE: Vogue Regency
CURRENTLY: Bristol Farms Grocery Store
Dave Chasen, Jimmy Stewart, Bill Grady, and Spencer Tracy at Chasen’s, 1949.
ORIGINALLY NAMED CHASEN’S SOUTHERN BARBECUE PIT, CHASEN’S WAS DESTINED TO BECOME HOLLYWOOD’S MOST FAMOUS EATERY. After receiving a $3,500 advance from New Yorker magazine founder and editor Harold Ross to help fund the restaurant, Dave Chasen and his partner, Joe Cook, opened Chasen’s on Beverly Boulevard in 1936, a few weeks before Christmas.
Chasen’s was small, with only six tables, a six-stool bar, and an eight-stool counter. The menu was limited and offered Southern fare like chili and ribs. The price of spareribs was thirty-five cents, a bowl of chili was twenty-five cents, and a call drink (a tipple containing the customer’s choice of liquor) was thirty-five cents. In the entire history of Chasen’s, the restaurant never accepted checks or credit cards—only cash.
With Ross’s help, news of the restaurant spread and celebrities started coming to the barbecue pit. Ross talked Dave Chasen into giving Dorothy Parker one free drink a night, because her presence at the restaurant drew publicity. The restaurant’s list of famous regulars grew, including Frank Sinatra, Buddy Ebsen, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, Jimmy Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, Ray Bolger, Joan Bennett, Joe DiMaggio, William Powell, Joan Blondell, Nunnally Johnson, James Thurber, Robert Benchley, and Alexander Woollcott.
Within a year, the place expanded from a small rib parlor to a restaurant, with more than thirty-five items on the menu served by full-service, uniformed waiters. As the space, clientele, and menu expanded, the name was shortened to “Chasen’s.” Every night, when the venue opened for dinner, Dave Chasen, who was always impeccably dressed, welcomed guests at the door wearing a suit lined in red silk and a bowtie.
Bill Grady, Hollywood’s number-one casting director in the 1930s, loved the restaurant’s steak and garlic bread and had his own table at the venue. Grady thought of his table as his own private office. “I did more business there, and I signed more actors there, than anywhere else,” he recalled. Grady ate at the restaurant with his favorite client, Jimmy Stewart, about four times a week, as well as other clients such as Mickey Rooney and Clark Gable. Jimmy Stewart even wined and dined his future wife, Gloria McLean, at Chasen’s. In 1949, Grady rented out the entire restaurant for Stewart’s bachelor party, attended by Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Frank Morgan, George Murphy, Jack Benny, Lew Wasserman, and David Niven. Stewart’s booth from Chasen’s is now on display at the Jimmy Stewart Museum in his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Jimmy Stewart and his wife, Gloria McLean (left) were regulars at Chasen’s, 1955.
Other celebrities had their “special” tables at the restaurant as well, including Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, and Leslie Howard. Humphrey Bogart, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Sinatra, and Ronald Reagan had their own permanent booths. Reagan proposed to actress Nancy Davis at Chasen’s in 1952; his booth from the restaurant is on permanent display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Of all the restaurant’s star patrons, Orson Welles reportedly had the biggest appetite; according to Hollywood lore, he ordered two of everything. Frank Sinatra was the smallest eater, reportedly only consuming half of what was served or ordering half portions, if it was allowed. And it’s said that Howard Hughes had the simplest palate, ordering tomato juice, butterflied steak, and salad.
Chasen’s became famous for its delicious cheese toast appetizer, colossal seafood platter, Caesar salad prepared tableside, and buffet that offered Beluga caviar. Regulars requested off-the-menu items like the renowned Hobo Steak, a thick New York cut that was roasted very rare in a crust of salt before being sliced and finished in butter in a copper sauté pan at the table. The chili at Chasen’s was its biggest culinary draw; customers ordered it even after it was taken off the menu. Dave Chasen reportedly kept the recipe a secret, and came in every Sunday to make up a batch for the week. Today, the Bristol Farms grocery store, built on the site of the former restaurant, takes special orders for Chasen’s chili in its catering department.
In 1939, newlyweds Clark Gable and Carole Lombard took Alfred Hitchcock to Chasen’s soon after he arrived in Hollywood to direct Rebecca. From then on, Hitch had a standing dinner reservation in booth number 2 on Thursday nights for more than forty years. Hitchcock routinely fell asleep at the table. A picture of Hitch’s daughter, Patricia, hung on the wall behind the booth.
When Howard Hughes bought Transcontinental and Western Air in 1939, he asked Dave Chasen to help him become the first airline to serve passengers hot food on good china and linens instead of the usual boxed sandwiches that Bill Marriott and his “Hot Shoppes” were serving on the East Coast. Hughes selected Chasen’s to cater the party for the launch of the Spruce Goose for its one and only flight on November 2, 1947.
During the war years, it was difficult to get a seat at Chasen’s. The Hollywood hot spot had strict rules that forbade autograph hounds and photographers from disturbing its celebrity diners. Because of this, stars felt that they could let their hair down at the restaurant. At one time, the building even included a barbershop, steam room, and shower area so stars traveling from the East Coast could go straight to the restaurant and freshen up before their meal.
Tommy Gallagher, one of the captains of the restaurant’s prestigious “Station 8” front room, worked at Chasen’s for over forty-six years. Gallagher often greeted the famous at the front door by their first name, and occasionally with a cunning remark. One time, he said to then-Vice President George Bush, “George, you know what your main problem is? You need a new tailor.” Only Gallagher could get away with making a comment like that.
Child stars Freddie Bartholomew, Peggy Ryan, Mickey Rooney, Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, and Jackie Cooper at Chasen’s, 1936.
Despite his lighthearted demeanor, Gallagher took his job seriously. When Nancy Reagan was in the hospital giving birth, he showed up with bags of Chasen’s food for her. Such behavior was not considered outrageous; taking care of the Chasen’s regulars was a staple of the house. When Lana Turner was expecting, Dave Chasen sawed off part of a table at the restaurant to accommodate her. He even shipped Chasen’s special chili to Elizabeth Taylor when she was in Europe filming Cleopatra in the early 1960s. It came to be known as the most expensive chili on earth.
Chasen’s was also the birthplace of a hit song. During a Grammy Awards celebration at the restaurant, singer Donna Summer went into the ladies room and noticed that the bathroom attendant had fallen asleep while watching a small portable television between visitors. This inspired Summer to write the song “She Works Hard for the Money.”
After Dave Chasen’s death in 1973, his wife and business partner, Maude, controlled the restaurant’s operations for twenty-two years. By 1995, she was ready to retire. When Chasen’s closed in April of that year, it had become a virtual time capsule of Old Hollywood, and many veteran stars turned out to bid it a fond farewell. An auction event was held in one of the restaurant’s banquet rooms to sell off nearly sixty years’ worth of memorabilia. On the auction list were sketches by Toulouse-Lautrec, drawings by humorist James Thurber, a picture of ballerinas signed “Degas” (no one was sure whether it was genuine), and a sketch by W. C. Fields of himself and John Barrymore. An enormous pressure cooker, four pianos, and 396 margarita glasses were also auctioned off.
In 1996, Chasen’s reopened briefly for a very private catered event. Hollywood luminaries joined some of politics’ biggest names to celebrate the eighty-fifth birthday of President Ronald Reagan. The president did not attend his own event, but dined quietly at his home in Bel-Air; former First Lady Nancy Reagan preferred that her husband avoid large gatherings after he was stricken with Alzheimer’s disease.
Chasen’s will be in my mind forever. In 1982, while working at a bakery called the Cake Walk, I delivered special chocolate cakes for a private party at Chasen’s. The code on the order form read “RR.” I can imagine who the cakes were for. When I entered the back door with the cakes in tow, Maude Chasen herself was there to greet me. That was my last view of Chasen’s. 
The Chasen’s entrance, 1951.