LA’s famed Tiny Naylor’s had a coffee shop in Montclair

As the new Panera Bread opened in Montclair last month with charming hoopla (a baguette-tearing as well as a ribbon-cutting), earlier restaurants on that site were the subject of conversation among old-timers.

Islands Burgers was the obvious predecessor, especially because Islands had been closed since 2010 but continued to sit there with signage and landscaping intact before finally being demolished in 2023. For 13 years, you might say, it was a deserted Islands.

Decades before that, the site was home to a Van de Kamp’s Bakery, with a spinning windmill edged in blue neon above the entry. Remember those? That was according to Bill Ruh, a city native and longtime councilmember who doubles as Montclair’s unofficial memory-keeper.

Ruh said another restaurant existed in between Van de Kamp’s in the 1970s and Islands in the 1990s and 2000s but, in a rare lapse, couldn’t come up with the name. I asked around. Nobody at City Hall knew. The consensus was that Ruh may have been mistaken.

I had faith, though. And a couple of weeks later, Ruh emailed with the name: Tiny Naylor’s.

Ah, Tiny Naylor’s. Those died out in the 1990s, before my time here, but the L.A.-based chain of diners, some with Googie architecture, is still remembered.

They date to the era of Ships, Ben Frank’s, Kerry’s, Sheri’s, Henry’s, Harvey’s Broiler, Coffee Dan’s, the Copper Penny and others where waitresses wore name tags, a signature sandwich was the Monte Cristo, the coffee kept flowing and you could end your meal with a fresh slice of pie.

But did Tiny Naylor’s reach really extend to the Inland Empire? It did, barely.

In his email, Ruh attached a Tiny Naylor’s advertisement that listed all the locations and their addresses. The farthest east was Montclair at 5210 Moreno St. (Side note: Panera’s address is 5212.)

The advertisement’s text says the 1949-founded Tiny Naylor’s has been around “over 50 years,” which dates the ad to 1990 or so. The Montclair phone number has a 714 area code. 714 went away in 1992, when 909 was created.

It seems likely to me that when Van de Kamp’s left, Tiny Naylor’s took over the vacant building. But I don’t know one way or the other.

Tiny Naylor was also a person.

William Wallace “Tiny” Naylor was his name. As is usual with men dubbed “Tiny,” the nickname was ironic: Naylor reputedly was 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds.

He opened the first Tiny Naylor’s in 1949 at Sunset and La Brea in Hollywood. Naylor died in 1959, but his son, Bill “Biff” Naylor, kept the diners going into the 1990s.

Biff also owned a chain of Biff’s Coffee Shops and, in 2004, came out of retirement to save Du-Par’s.

That’s all neither here nor there, I suppose, but it was pleasant to learn that Tiny Naylor’s had a presence in the Inland Empire.

So did Tiny Naylor himself. He owned a 640-acre horse-breeding ranch in Jurupa Valley. In the 1950s he built a Colonial-style mansion there with columned veranda to please his wife, Millie.

Known as Crestmore Manor, it’s now part of Rancho Jurupa Park. The manor was described in a 2013 Press-Enterprise feature as a popular wedding destination and like something out of “Gone With the Wind.”

(Because these columns are all connected somehow, you’ll be reading here next month about “Gone With the Wind.” History buffs will instantly know why. The rest of you can guess.)

Returning to Montclair — and why did we ever leave? — Ruh reminisced about changes over a half-century to that small Moreno Street shopping center, the one where Panera now stands.

Target replaced Montgomery Ward. Wells Fargo replaced First Interstate Bank, which replaced United California Bank. The now-vacant 99 Cents Only store replaced Thrifty Drug.

And, to tie things up, Ruh concluded like this: “Panera replaced Islands, which replaced Tiny Naylor’s, which replaced Van de Kamp’s.”

Ah, the neon-edged windmills of our minds.

More Montclair

Getting a Panera in that spot took eight years, as my column explained, with the foot-dragging largely due to the private sector. The shopping center has multiple owners and corporate tenants with complex leases. Not everyone saw a Panera with a drive-thru as a win-win, at least not without gentle persuasion or money changing hands.

Two years before all that, Panera had investigated a site a few blocks away on the western perimeter of Montclair Place mall on Monte Vista Avenue at South Plaza Lane, which formerly held a Texaco station.

“The challenge there, similar to what was faced on Moreno Street, was shoehorning the building and drive-thru lane onto a site that simply couldn’t accommodate it,” said Steve Lustro, the city’s retired community development director. “Glad that Panera and city staff didn’t give up on this project and found an alternate site.”

Ed Starr, the city manager, told me Panera was the third chain to look at the Moreno Street site.

Raising Cane’s inquired first but moved on rather than wait for a zoning change. Chick-fil-A inquired next but decided they preferred a vacant lot across Moreno on the north side of Montclair Place next to Robbins Bros. Jewelry.

However, Robbins Bros. has since moved, and its old building will be demolished as part of a mixed-use development that won’t include a fast-food restaurant, Starr said.

Tough break for Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A. Finding a suitable spot for a drive-thru restaurant is not for the chicken-hearted.

David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and (brawwk!) Wednesday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.