Early reviews of the renovated Du-par’s Restaurant, the iconic L.A. diner that opened in 1938, have been mixed.
The word on the pancakes, once dubbed “the best in the U.SA.” by Esquire magazine, is that they’re as good as ever. The physical upgrade, though, has not been as universally well received.
The Farmer’s Market fixture recently reopened after a two-year hiatus for upgrades. The Naylor family the well-known owners of Tiny Naylor’s drive-throughs, Biff’s Coffee Shops and a host of other eateries in the past 70 years took over in 2004 and embarked on the overhaul.
“It looks good, and as long as they kept elements of the classic Du-Par’s and didn’t change the pancakes, I’m happy,” said Los Angeles resident Katin McSeely, who recently had lunch at the eatery.
Some locals opined on message boards and blogs that the restaurant which received a C rating from the county health department before it changed hands in 2004 needed a good cleanup, and diners last week welcomed the change.
But others aren’t so keen on the newer look.
“It’s not the old Du-par’s,” lamented Chris Nichols, an editor at Los Angeles Magazine and a member of the L.A. Conservancy Modern Committee.
The volunteer group was formed in 1984, in response to a wave of construction that eliminated a number of post-war buildings, including Ship’s diner on La Cienega and Tiny Naylor’s at La Brea and Sunset. Still, Nichol’s said, Du-par’s was a “decent facsimile of a period restaurant.”
Owner Biff Naylor, son of the founder of Tiny Naylor’s drive-throughs, said updating while preserving the original was tricky.
“We found 17 sets of ‘original’ architectural plans for the place when we opened up the vault,” Naylor said. “We really tried to find something that pleased everyone.”
Building and Safety wanted energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, for example, but conservationists lobbied for the original lights. In the end, modern lights that looked like the originals were installed. “We really went through a lot to recreate that look,” Naylor said.
The renovation was supposed to take a few months. That timetable was pushed to a year, and then stretched again until it was almost two years to the day since the work began that the restaurant finally re-opened.
Naylor said the job ended up costing twice as much as he had budgeted, and that he and his wife had to kick in the money to get the project finished. Much of the delay was due to the difficulty of finding replacements or custom-making the original elements of the restaurant.
“The time itself costs you a lot of money in labor, but we had to live up to what we said we would do. When you are my age a year extra is a long time, said Naylor. “I hate to think of the business opportunity lost.”
He owns half the business, while 48 others including developer Steve Soboroff each have a 1 percent stake; one of Naylor’s brothers has the remaining 2 percent.
And when it comes to the pancakes, and it turns out Du-par’s devotees needn’t have worried.
“Of course we got the recipe. It’s a huge part of everything that was the old Du-par’s,” said Naylor. The pancake recipe was part of the purchase agreement and is kept in a vault in his office.
