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Old Ludlow Cafe

Route 66, Ludlow, CA
Phone:

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The ruins of the former Ludlow Cafe building still stood a couple of blocks east of the newer Ludlow Route 66 Cafe. The old cafe was on the north side of Route 66 next to a former Union 76 gas station. Earl and Lillian Warnix ran the cafe for many years before selling it in the early 1960s. Keeping help in a desert location like Ludlow apparently wasn't all that easy as evidenced by a more or less constantly running help wanted ad in the San Bernardino County Sun newspaper at least as far back as 1948 and well into the 1960s.

The building stood open and deteriorating in this 2013 photo. It had been boarded up before a fire in 2008. I don't know exactly when the cafe closed, but a 1983 newspaper photo shows it looking pretty much like the one above, except the Ludlow Cafe lettering was still on the building.

A second fire picked up where the first one left off and inflicted even more damage on the building.

By 2015 the building had been reduced to ruble, but the light post out front survived.

Lee Yim was proprietor in 1935.

Photo(s): 2013, 2017