MAKING A STAND

By MICHAEL PERKINS

CALIFORNIA IS HISTORICALLY THE BUTT OF JOKES launched by the rest of America, mostly, I think, because it is a land of many firsts. Some of these innovations, from politics to entertainment and back again, are accurate forecasts of what will eventually spread like prairie grass across the continent and be absorbed into the “normal”. Others fall into the category of “fads” and merely add to the reputation of the state as “the land of fruits and nuts”. Photographically, CA’s “let’s try this” mentality adds a lot of flavor and not a little fascination. If Oregon now markets itself with the motto “keep Portland weird”, well, that’s just an unofficial franchise. We invented weird.

You’re welcome.

Cali has redefined dining for over a century, having established itself, early on, as the place where car culture met cuisine culture. We not only pioneered the “drive-in” (for both restaurants and theaters), we refined the concept further, later on, as the “drive-thru”, extending the stay-in-your-car ethos to banks, dry cleaners, and who knows, maybe confessionals. But before the drive-in, there was the walk-up, the “stand”, buildings designed almost exclusively for take-away, as the Brits call it. Take an enclosed kitchen and attach a wall of windows and a counter, and you’re in the eats business. Hot dog stands, burger stands, soft-serve stands, many of them sporting bright colors and garish architecture, like billboards with a side of food. Entire mini-libraries and reference works have been created to photographically chronicle these unique and bizarre roadside grub huts, even as many have vanished, only to rise again as food trucks.

B&J Drive-In (but mostly walk-up), Ventura, California, 2026

It’s no spoiler to restate that I adore “joints”, places where the owner is also the fry cook and his kids are working the counter. No chain or conglomerate can compare for sheer quirky individualism. I love the crazy contours, the misspelled menus, the cheesy murals, the unabashed carny out-thereness of them all. When I see signs that start with “since 19—” or “home of the original—-“, I’m already halfway sold. Drive-ins are about distancing the customer from where the magic happens. Stands say, step right up, how’s it goin’, what can I getcha. California is a magnet for new ideas, a laboratory for things that at first seem odd to the rest of the country, but soon become everyday, even invisible, in their universality. From the day in 1924 that a Pasadena joint called The Rite Spot became the first place to put a slice of cheese on a hamburger, we’re all about trying things out. What doesn’t work, we lose. What does work stays on the menu.