OPEN: 1959–present
LOCATION: 1657 Ocean Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90401
ORIGINAL PHONE: EX 5-1741
CURRENT PHONE: (310) 395-1741
CUISINE: American
DESIGN: Britton S. Shriver
STYLE: Nautical
Guests—and a live elephant—enjoy peanuts and drinks at the circus-themed grand opening of Chez Jay, 1959.
HOW CAN A BAR/RESTAURANT WITH ONLY TEN TABLES AND TWELVE BARSTOOLS HAVE SO MUCH HISTORY AND COMMAND SO MUCH POWER?
Two words: Jay Fiondella.
In the late 1950s, Fiondella was a bartender at Sinbad’s, a bar on the Santa Monica Pier. Before his shift, he would sometimes have breakfast at the Dawn Café, a small eatery on Ocean Avenue. One morning, the café’s owner, who was tired of working there, said to Jay that he would sell the place to anyone for a dollar. Fiondella took the offer seriously and jumped at the chance. He took out a loan and renamed the café Chez Jay—an homage to Chez Joey, a restaurant in the Frank Sinatra film Pal Joey.
Chez Jay’s opening night on July 4, 1959, was a circus—literally. Fiondella had a circus tent erected on the south side of the building, and hired Vegas-esque showgirls to entertain his guests. He even had a live elephant there (it ended up denting the bar with its massive trunk; the dent can still be seen to this day).
The interior of Chez Jay has a homey, inviting feel. Red-and-white-checked oilcloth tablecloths cover the tables, and red-and-white awnings hang over the booths. The cement floor is covered with a layer of sawdust and peanut shells. Every wall in the place is packed with ephemera from Fiondella’s past adventures, as well as a vast collection of photos of all the stars who have visited the restaurant.
A few years after the restaurant opened, Sinatra himself became a regular at Chez Jay. Table 10 was his favorite—and the favorite of many other high-profile guests. Located in the back of the restaurant, table 10 was in its own room, separate from the rest of the place, with a curtain that could be drawn for privacy. The curtain remained closed for many years until Jay’s mother, Alice, removed it to prevent Warren Beatty from “entertaining” so many of his female friends. Jay named table 10 “The Kissinger Room” after Henry Kissinger, who often dined and hosted meetings there. Marlon Brando reportedly left with a waitress after sitting at table 10. It is also said that, in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg passed the Pentagon Papers to a New York Times reporter at table 10. In the ’90s, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote parts of their Academy Award-winning screenplay Good Will Hunting at the table.
The first celebrities attracted to Chez Jay—such as Vivien Leigh, Peter Finch, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Burton, and Peter Sellers—were mostly British. In the early years, jazz musicians such as Chet Baker and Slim Gaillard performed at the restaurant every week.
Chez Jay’s celebrity anecdotes are endless. Lee Marvin once drove his motorcycle through the front door to order a drink, helmet and all. Peter Lawford allegedly met a certain blond actress at the restaurant to take her up to his Pacific Palisades beach house, where President Kennedy was waiting. In 1966, after winning an Academy Award for his performance in Cat Ballou, Lee Marvin walked into Chez Jay with his entourage, celebrated all night until closing, and then forgot his Oscar at the restaurant; he had to come back the next day to retrieve it. Michelle Pfeiffer met her husband, producer and director David E. Kelley, at the restaurant. After a night of drinking, Richard Harris sang songs from his 1967 award-winning movie Camelot to the other diners at the restaurant. In 1996, Quentin Tarantino used one of the restaurant’s back rooms to rehearse his cast for the movie Jackie Brown. It is said that Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s ghost haunts the bar from time to time.
Jay Fiondella, his mother, Alice, and Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard examine the Chez Jay peanut that Shepard took with him to the moon, 1971.
In 1971, Alan Shepard, the commander of Apollo 14, took a peanut from the bar at Chez Jay, hid it in a film canister, and took it with him to the moon. When he returned from the mission, he brought the peanut back to Chez Jay. Once, Fiondella was showing the peanut to Steve McQueen when the actor jokingly popped the entire nut into his mouth and pretended to eat it. After that, Fiondella kept the peanut in a safe deposit box.
Fiondella was something of a playboy. He owned a small house in Malibu that he called “Jay’s Sugar Shack.” In 1970, his profile in Los Angeles Magazine was accompanied by a photo of Fiondella in front of the shack with women in bikinis. He was also featured as the bachelor of the month in Cosmopolitan magazine and appeared on ABC’s The Dating Game and the long-running show To Tell the Truth. He often partied into the wee hours of the morning at the Playboy mansion.
Chez Jay made an appearance in many films, including Lethal Weapon, Bad Influence, Two Shades of Blue, Last Light, and A Single Man. The restaurant was also the inspiration for the Regal Beagle Pub on the hit show Three’s Company.
When Fiondella passed away in 2008, Chez Jay’s manager, Michael Anderson, and Jay’s daughter, Anita, became co-owners of the restaurant. In 2012, the Santa Monica City Council officially named Chez Jay a historic landmark, preventing its demolition to make way for new development.
After Fiondella’s death, Leonard Nimoy, who had roomed with Fiondella in the early 1950s, told the Los Angeles Times: “He was a gregarious, great guy. . . . I ate at his place occasionally. Always had great stories and good food.” 