A small Chris’ & Pitt’s sign will be up soon. in Van Nuys, in the next couple of months. The Whittier location signs will be fixed up and put up at the Valley Relics Museum, C3 & C4 entrance at 7900 Balboa Blvd. “We want the businesses to succeed,” he said, but he added: Once a restaurant is getting ready to close its door, the relationships he creates with the owner allow him to help preserve the sign for everyone to enjoy for years to come. Gelinas also wants the community to know that Valley Relics is a last resort for these signs to go and be preserved. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) “So I tell people, our local history here is really global, and when we save this stuff, it’s really for everyone.” Valley Relics Museum team member Leonard Campbell with signs from Chris’ & Pitt’s, a beloved barbecue restaurant that recently closed its Whittier location. “We are the breeding ground for marketing and test marketing, and that’s where pop culture started,” Gelinas said. And that’s just the vintage signage.Īfter 25 years, collecting that signage remains a labor of love for Gelinas and his team. You might say that the museum is where many vintage signs and other artifacts go not to die, but to live. The source on that? That’s right: Valley Relics Museum. And in case you’re wondering, there was a San Fernando Valley location back in the day. The chain’s two restaurants, one in Bellflower on Artesia Boulevard and one in Downey on Lakewood Blvd., remain open. Pelonis oversaw the Chris’ & Pitt’s restaurant chain up to his last days, and now his children and his grandchildren carry on his legacy, according to the restaurant’s website. The last Orange County site shuttered in 2010 after nearly 40 years. Over the years, the number of barbecues dwindled. During the 1950s, Pelonis developed his barbecue sauce and it was a top seller in 11 western states.
The chain ultimately grew to 14 restaurants in Los Angeles and Orange counties. With few resources and a big vision, the late Chris George Pelonis borrowed $2,000 from his father, George, and in 1949 – with his business partner, Morris Pittman – opened his first restaurant on Tweedy Boulevard in Lynwood. Valley Relics created a relationship with the owners and was able to preserve the signs - with help of his preservation team and crane crew at the Campbell Crane company. It begins with creating a relationship with the business owners, so when they sell the restaurant or if the signs are coming down Gelinas is the one that they call to pick it up, he said.Īnd that is what happened with Chris’ & Pitt’s. And as such, it deserves respect.”īeing able to preserve restaurant signs isn’t just a matter of picking up the remnants. This isn’t so much a restaurant, as it is an institution. There aren’t a lot of restaurants that date back to 1940. It’s the sort of restaurant you mention to people in other parts of town and they light up, remembering the times they went there with their folks. “It’s the stuff I grew up with, it’s Southern California pop culture,” said a happy Gelinas, elated with the recent find.Īs Southern California restaurant maven Merrill Shindler noted in a 2014 visit: “Fans are loyal to Chris’ & Pitt’s, who in return are a loyalists to fans. And now, a few months later, a little piece of the Chris’ & Pitt’s legacy has been preserved in a Valley Relics warehouse, with the signage getting ready to make a debut soon at Gelinas’ relic-filled museum near the Van Nuys Airport. Gelinas and his crew of Southern California signage sleuths sprung into action. Valley Relics Museum founder Tommy Gelinas with signs from Chris’ & Pitt’s, a beloved restaurant that recently closed its Whittier location. to make way for veterans housing at the site.īy the end of the week, about 50 people had reached out to his Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys urging him to rescue the signs of this beloved bastion of barbecue. The restaurant - a gem on the Southern California pop culture landscape - was closing its Whittier site at 13500 Washington Blvd. Chris’ & Pitt’s Bar-B-Q Restaurant was a staple in the Whittier community for more than seven decades – serving wood-smoked ribs, ham, brisket and more.īut then one week in March, Tommy Gelinas started getting dozens of social media messages.
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