It was still Fox and Hounds through about 1978. I interviewed at a company at 3130 Wilshire, SM in February 78′. They took me to lunch there. It was great.

In 1979 it was very briefly a Disco named “Humperdink’s” before the Suzy Wong thing started about 1980.

Lon

My step-dad knew a lot of film and entertainment people and one of my F&H highlights was meeting William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy) in the lounge bar.

The folks would generally have a few martinis before dinner (I usually got the olive on the second round), my younger sister would get a “Shirley Temple” and I would have a “Hopalong Cassidy” until I got to be around eleven and switched to a much more sophisticated cherry coke.

The head waiter’s name was Cage. He was a distinguished, charismatic, ramrod straight black gentleman from the West Indies who looked as if he could have easily been a film star. He was only a few years older than my parents, but had thick silver-grey hair that made him look even more distinguished. I remember my folks being both happy and sad when Cage left the restaurant to take a job with Schick. He’d been hired by one of his regular diners to head up a newly established department set up to create and sell products to what was known as the “colored” market back then.

The folks were happy that his talents had been recognised and rewarded (he would be making something like ten times what he was earning at the restaurant), but they were sad he was leaving. They’d built up quite a relationship over the years and kept in touch with him and what was going on in his family for several years.

I also remember Caesar salads being mixed on a special cart at the table, shrimp cocktails I haven’t seen the likes of since and, most of all, that splendiferous dessert cart they rolled around after dinner.

The last time I dinned with them at the Fox and Hounds was sometime after I’d graduated from high school (SAMOHI) in 1959. By that time I not only had a job and a car, but also a taste for more exotic food, including Italian, Asian and Cal-Mex. If I remember correctly, only a few years after that the ownership of the restaurant changed hands and my parents felt that standards had dropped as a result. So they stopped going to the Fox and Hounds before it finally faded from the local scene.

For some drawings and photos of Santa Monica Bay during 50’s, 60’s and 70’s visit: .

The picture of the building that replaced the restaurant is wrong, the land now contains a Pet Depot.
Thanks for the memory.