The Last Reminder of Van De Kamp’s Bakeries Is in Arcadia

Denny’s, former Van de Kamp’s Bakery, Huntington Dr, Arcadia, built in 1967 (Photo – ©ColoradoBlvd.net, 2021)

The Denny’s restaurant on Huntington Drive in Arcadia still has the iconic windmill of Van de Kamp’s baking empire.

By Marina Khrustaleva

The family enterprise was established in Pasadena in 1915 and flourished until the 1980s. Eye-catching bakeries with shingled blue and white windmills appeared around Los Angeles in the 1920s. The first one, on Beverly Boulevard and Westmoreland Street, was designed by Hollywood art director Harry Oliver as a movie set and then purchased for a bakery.

Van de Kamp waitresses were dressed in old-fashioned Holland-style blue and white costumes.  The bakeries served sixteen kinds of rolls and muffins, eighteen varieties of bread, thirty-four varieties of cakes, pots of baked beans, egg noodles, pretzels, and oversize potato chips. Bakeries with windmills popped up on Avalon and West 1^st, on Adams and Crenshaw, and on South Verdugo in Glendale. The last survivor of this era in LA is a wingless tower at 4161 Figueroa Street in South LA housing Best Way Liquor.

Van de Kamp’s Bakery, 1696 E Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, built in 1927 (Photo – Los Angeles Public Library, 1940s)

Built in 1927, the Pasadena bakery was located on the southeast corner of East Colorado Boulevard and Bonnie Avenue (1696 E Colorado Boulevard). A prominent windmill atop the store was attached to a white L-shaped structure with stepped Dutch pediments. It’s very likely it was a project of New York architect J. Edwin Hopkins who designed Van de Kamp’s factory and headquarters in Glassell Park in 1930 – the two buildings had much in common. It’s a pity this little plaza resembling an old Dutch farmhouse was demolished in 1974 and later replaced by a generic Chick-fil-A branch.

In the mid-1940s, architect Wayne McAllister designed a modernist drive-in – two oval-shaped Streamline Moderne structures attached to a hexagonal bakery with a windmill. It was located on the corner of Fletcher Drive and San Fernando Road in Atwater Village, less than a block away from the Dutch Renaissance Revival headquarters. This building also has not survived; it’s commemorated on matchboxes.

Van de Kamp’s Bakery, corner of Beverly Blvd and Western Ave, built in 1921 (Photo – Los Angeles Public Library, 1937)

In 1967, Pasadena architects Harold Bissner, Jr. and Harold B. Zook came up with an iconic “Dutch bonnet” folded plate prototype for Van de Kamp’s reimagined coffee shops. The poured-in-place concrete shell reminds one of a giant origami sculpture with 16 “mountain folds” crowned with a forty-foot spinning windmill. 13 out of 40 planned cafeterias were built throughout the region: in Marina del Rey, Buena Park, Burbank, Anaheim, Norwalk, and more. All but Arcadia’s are gone.

The restaurant in Arcadia could have lost its windmill when Denny’s planned a remodel in 1999. Preservationists’ efforts helped to preserve the windmill, and it began rotating again in 2016, after 27 years of stillness. One of the architects, Harold Bissner, was still alive to witness this miracle.

Van de Kamp’s Bakery, Marina del Rey, built c. 1967 (Photo – Library of Congress, date unknown)

A founder of the family business, Theodore J. Van de Kamp, died in 1956, and the company was sold to General Baking Co. soon after. The name remained meaningful for Pasadena; Theodore’s nephew and Pasadena resident, John K. Van de Kamp (1936-2017), was very active and influential in community affairs. Van de Kamp served as the Los Angeles County District Attorney, U.S. Attorney, and later on the 28th Attorney General of California.

La Loma bridge across Arroyo Seco reopened after a thorough restoration in June 2017, shortly after Van de Kamp’s passing. The 1914 bridge was dedicated to John Van de Kamp and now bears his name.

Van de Kamp’s Bakery, Encinal Market, Alameda (Photo – Thomas Hawk, 2009)

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