Thursday, August 06, 2009

More Belisle's, The City, Laguna Scouts, SCP, etc.

The Belisle's post got such a big response, I figure I might as well post a couple more images of the place. The photo above appears in the Belisle's book I mentioned and was taken in 1955. The second photo shows just how rural that stretch of Harbor Blvd. was in the early years.
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Dave, who supplied two of yesterday's photos of Belisle's, has also posted photos and video of The City mall in Orange -- now the site of The Block.
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The next Laguna Beach Historical Society meeting will be held Sept. 21, 7:30-9:30pm at the City Hall Council Chambers, 505 Forest Ave. The program will be "A Retrospective of Boy Scouts/Cub Scouts in Laguna Beach - In Conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of Boy Scouts of America," presented by Pam Jensen, Committee Chair for Laguna Beach Cub Scout Pack 35. The public is invited and there is no charge.
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The Register just featured an article about the Encyclopedia Lots in Huntington Beach. It seems the City is buying more of them to add space to Central Park. This follows a related article published in March. If memory serves, they both have the name of the Encyclopedia wrong.
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There was also an interesting interview with Merl “Bus” Cornelius, the former superintendent of construction and operations manager for South Coast Plaza. He discusses the development of a place we've all visited many times.

5 comments:

outsidetheberm said...

These are great! While the portions were huge, I seem to remember some sticker shock on the prices, as well.

And speaking of grabbing old rubble (previous post) my best Orange County chunk came from the Golden Bear after it came down.

Thanks for look at these.

Diane said...

It was The Americana Encyclopedia. I have a photo copy of deeds that I received from Barbara Milkovich. The books were sold for $125 and a lot was thrown in for free!

Unknown said...

I'm from Detroit and I was involved in the trade show circuit for many years and did many shows at the convention center. My first visit to Belisle's was in July of 1987 because it was one of the few restaurants open at that time of the morning. The waitress handed me the menu and I first thought it was a gag menu. A $42 breakfast, $4 for a grilled cheese sandwich (common price now) but that sandwich was more than I could eat. Over the next 7 years it got to be a real treat to take new people from our company to Belisle's just to blow their minds with the portion sizes and the fantastic food. Anyone I ever took there talked about Belisle's for months afterward. The things I remember most were the monster cakes and pastries by the front door, the giant Coke glasses with the 2 foot straws full of that fantastic root beer, and the great service. So sorry to know they tore it down. "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till its gone. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

Anonymous said...

I was raised in Garden Grove in the 1970's played many football games at Garden Grove Park, and hundreds of baseball games at the school on Trask and Brookhurst.

Belise's was the incentive for a win. To this day I still think about the" Lumberjack Breakfast", on that giant metal plate. I actually saw on of my coaches Mr. Lannon eat the entire thing.

Huge portions, and huge pies,fill my childhood memories.

I greatly appreciate the photos, the second I saw them it took me back to 10yrs. of age. Thank You

Unknown said...

Used to take my kids there after a day at Disneyland. One of our favorite places, sure sa5 is gone!