Conservancies have nominated the 1959 Mel’s Drive-In on Lincoln Boulevard as a landmark after its owner submitted preliminary plans for apartments, setting up a classic California showdown between housing and nostalgia
Fries Or Floors
SANTA MONICA. Preservationists are fighting to save Santa Monica’s last Googie diner, according to LAist’s report on whether Santa Monica’s Mel’s Drive-In can be saved. The owner of the Mel’s Drive-In at 1670 Lincoln Boulevard, Irvine-based ValueRock, has submitted preliminary plans under SB 330 to replace the midcentury building with an eight-story apartment building. According to the city, no demolition permit has been requested. The Santa Monica Conservancy and the Los Angeles Conservancy filed on September 4 to nominate the 1959 building, its parcel and its sign as a landmark, and the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission will hear the nomination on Monday, December 14, at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
The battle pits two of California’s most cherished values against each other: the urgent need for more housing and the equally urgent need to eat a patty melt in a building shaped like the future as imagined in 1959.
The Building
According to LAist, the building opened in 1959 as the Penguin Coffee Shop, near the end of Route 66, and was designed by Armet and Davis, the firm behind many of Southern California’s great Googie coffee shops. It became a dentist’s office in 1991, and the Weiss family restored it as Mel’s Drive-In in 2018. ValueRock bought the property around 2020. Preservationists call it Santa Monica’s last Googie diner, the last bird standing.
Googie architecture, with its swooping roofs, bold angles, neon signs and space age optimism, was once everywhere in Southern California. It expressed a belief that the future would be exciting, modern and full of milkshakes. Many of the buildings have since disappeared. An architecture professor in Pasadena said each loss erased a piece of the region’s personality. Googie was the architecture of optimism, she said. It said, the future is coming, and it has a counter with stools. Today the future has eight stories and a leasing office. Both have their place. But only one has a sign shaped like a boomerang.
The Dentist Years
The building’s period as a dentist’s office from 1991 has fascinated locals. Somewhere in the history of Santa Monica, people sat in this space of midcentury optimism having their teeth drilled. A retired Santa Monica resident said she had been a patient. I had a root canal in the Penguin, she said. I remember looking up at that roof and thinking, this building was designed for joy. And here I am, in pain. When it became a diner again, I went for a milkshake. Full circle. My dentist would not approve.
The Housing Question
Landmark designation would not block housing, according to LAist. The commission would review how new development treats the building’s historic features. Nina Fresco, vice president of the Santa Monica Conservancy, pointed to Nikkei Hall, which was landmarked in 2018 and later incorporated into a senior housing project. The precedent suggests a possible compromise: an apartment building that preserves the diner, allowing residents to live above a Googie coffee shop and descend for pancakes in their slippers.
A housing advocate in Venice said she supported both goals. We need homes, she said. Desperately. Santa Monica needs housing for teachers, nurses and young people who want to live where they work. But we also need places that make a city feel like itself. If someone can build eight stories and keep the diner, that is the dream. You could advertise it. Live above the last bird standing. Fries delivered by elevator.
The Owners
ValueRock had asked the Santa Monica Conservancy to delay its nomination, according to Fresco, but the groups filed anyway. ValueRock did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment. Colton Weiss said the family hopes this all works out. Fresco said she expects any designation to be appealed, setting up a process that could stretch for months, a timeline that diners hope will allow them to eat many more burgers in the meantime.
A waitress at a nearby diner, which is not Googie but does have very good coffee, said she was rooting for Mel’s. Every diner that closes is a little tragedy, she said. Diners are where people go at two in the morning to talk about their lives. Where do people go if the diners are gone? A rooftop bar? A coworking space? You cannot have a heart-to-heart in a coworking space. Somebody will ask you to keep it down.
How To Weigh In
Residents can email planningcomment@santamonica.gov before noon on December 14, referencing the address, or comment in person at the hearing. Virtual participation is not available, and the agenda is expected by December 10. For Angelenos accustomed to commenting on everything online, the requirement to physically attend a meeting represents a significant commitment, though preservationists hope the prospect of losing a beloved diner will motivate them.
Route 66 Memories
The diner’s location near the end of Route 66 gives it a special place in American imagination. Route 66, the highway from Chicago to Santa Monica, became a symbol of migration, adventure and the dream of California. Generations of travellers ended their journeys in Santa Monica, and roadside coffee shops like the Penguin were part of that experience. Preservationists argue that losing the building would erase a piece of that story.
The Last Word
On a Friday evening, a family of four sat in a booth at Mel’s, sharing fries and milkshakes beneath the swooping roof. The father, who grew up in Santa Monica, told his children about the diner’s history. Penguin, dentist, Mel’s, he said. Three lives already. His daughter asked what it would be next. He looked out the window at Lincoln Boulevard, at the traffic and the new buildings rising in the distance. Hopefully, he said, still a diner. Maybe with apartments on top. She considered this. Can we live there, she asked. If we can afford it, he said. Then they all laughed, because it was Santa Monica, and that was the funniest thing anyone had said all night.