The “BLVD” Cafe sign is back in the town where it once stood.
The sign was on loan from the Duarte Historical Society in Duarte, California, to the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow, California, for about 30 years.
But after the museum closed earlier this year, Duarte historian Alan Heller recalled the sign was on loan, he told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and made some calls to get it back.
Brendan O’Brien of the California Route 66 Museum in Victorville is the new guardian of most of the Barstow museum’s collection. He was the one who rented a truck and delivered the sign to Duarte two weeks ago.
The unique relic was accepted by Heller and curator Liz Reilly and will be displayed in the museum’s Route 66 Room soon.
The Route 66 Room at the Duarte Historical Museum was dedicated to Heller and his late wife Claudia, seven months after she died at age 79.
According to a decade-old post on the Duarte, CA blog, Shirley Halburian opened The BLVD Cafe on Huntington Drive (aka Route 66) in Duarte in 1946 in an old orange juice and hamburger stand. The restaurant got its name because “Boulevard” didn’t fit on the sign.
It closed in 1989 after the city seized the property by eminent domain to make way for a shopping center.
Claudia Heller wrote in her book “Life on Route 66” (Amazon link) the restaurant was founded in 1946 by Susie and Tommy Tomasian. She also wrote that Sammy Davis Jr. and Red Skelton were regulars there.
(Colorized excerpt from a black-and-white image of BLVD Cafe sign in Duarte, California)