About a month ago I did a weekday post expounding on my childhood memories of the Santa Anita fashion Park Mall in Arcadia, California, the neighborhood in which I was a young boy in the late 70s. By the early 80s, my family had relocated farther inland to that hot, smoggy region loftily referred to as the “Inland Empire.” As a result, my “local mall” ceased to be Fashion Park and became the Montclair Plaza.
In June of last year, I published a pair of posts that were bittersweet for me, showcasing my first trip back to that region in 13 years, commenting on the things that had changed and the things that had not. On that trip, I rode with a couple of my friends past what had once been the Montclair Plaza, and we ate lunch at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus nearby that many years ago was a very different restaurant. I say that because although the shopping area still exists, it has been ludicrously renamed “Montclair Place,” and as one would expect after nearly 30 years, it bears little resemblance to the mall that I knew.
But then, the Montclair Plaza was always a dynamic place! I was surprised to learn that it predates Santa Anita Fashion Park by quite a few years: the Montclair Plaza was first opened way back in 1968, I first saw it in 1981, and I’m sure it had changed in that first 13 years, but it was still a relatively small place as shopping malls went, being only one story tall and with three anchor stores.
The Sit-Down Era
In these early days, it had no food park. Before the food court reshaped everything in the mid-’80s, Montclair was dotted with full-service restaurants that gave the place an almost old-fashioned feel. There was a place called the Hollander Cafe that I never ate at, but I always wanted to, but I could never convince my folks to try it: it had an entrance of light blue and white tile that looked very inviting. I have the slightest memory of another restaurant called the Jolly Roger, I don’t know that I ever ate there either, and there was also a Bob’s Big Boy inside the mall, complete with the Big Boy statue… I always thought that was a little odd. Also, in these early days, there was a place called El Poco Candle, which fascinated me because I had never seen a dedicated candle shop up to that point. The place was heavy with the aroma of perfume candles, and seemed exotic to my then 11 year-old mind. Across the parking lot, detached from the mall technically but still a spiritual part of it, was Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor, where birthday parties erupted into parades of sirens, drums, and comically oversized sundaes.
These places didn’t just serve food—they gave Montclair a sense of occasion. They were destinations inside a destination. Which is why their disappearance hit so hard when the remodel came. The food court swept them away, replacing sit-down experiences with grab-and-go efficiency. Hollander’s tiles, Farrell’s sundaes, Bob’s neon glow—all vanished into a sea of plastic trays and fast-food counters.
The Stores That Marked My Childhood
Montclair wasn’t glamorous, but it was utilitarian. My mom might drag me into JCPenney for school clothes, or May Company for towels and linens. I wasn’t thinking about thread counts—I was thinking about escape. The mall was full of sensory markers that anchored my memories.
KayBee Toys was the typical mall toy store of its era: pure excitement, all flashing RC cars, boxed action figures, and rows of board games stacked to the ceiling. In terms of individual stores, by far the happiest memories are of B. Dalton Bookseller. It was here that I bought my first Kurt Vonnegut novels, picked out countless Agatha Christie paperbacks, and thumbed through scores of glossy British import classic car magazines like “Classic & Sportscar” and “Thoroughbred & Classic Cars,” salivating at beautiful pictures and reading fascinating details of the worlds most awesome racing machines in the days before you could dial them up with a few keyboard clicks on the “interwebz.” I spent countless hours in that crowded store with its tall, tightly packed aisles aromatic with fresh paper and binding glue, flipping through Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes collections and reprints of classic Pogo comics from the ‘50s, not yet realizing how deeply those cartoons would root themselves in my memory.
And of course, Musicland (later rebranded to Sam Goody) —overpriced, mainstream, with a frustratingly shallow selection. But I still loved it. I can remember standing in those aisles with my freshly buzz-cut hair wearing a T-Shirt with the logo of a band like The Adolescents or Dead Kennedys, knowing I’d never find that kind of music there. Even so, Musicland was part of the ritual!
Although I spent a good amount of time at the mall with my family, I always thought the place was a little underwhelming for the ever-growing wealth and prosperity of the area. All that was to change in 1985.
The Remodel: Montclair Goes Big-Time
Everything changed in 1985. That’s when Montclair Plaza went two-story, added Sears and (the following year) Nordstrom as as new anchors, and suddenly seemed like it was trying to punch above its weight. The escalators, the skylights, the wider corridors—it all gave the mall a big-city vibe, something closer to the L.A. or Orange County centers. What was amazing about this ambitious, multi-year project was that even under this most intense construction, the mall remained open! It was often almost scary to walk through like that, with the floor tiles cracked from falling tools and vehicle traffic and covered with large tarps to hide the damage and the merchandise in the stores sometimes coated with a film of drywall dust, but back in the days before the incompetence wrought by “DEI,” there were engineers clever enough to figure out how to raise the roof and triple the size of a shopping center while keeping it functional! Even more amazing was that the majority of the big construction was finished in under a year, with the second story “officially” opening shortly before Halloween in 1985. The roll-out of anchors and interior spaces stretched into the following year — shoppers were still seeing plywood walls, “coming soon” signs, and construction crews well into 1986. But for a project of that scope, to be completed in that amount of time while the mall remained operational, was an accomplishment I’m quite certain could not be duplicated today.
Montclair Plaza seemed to finally recognize the weight of its role in the region—not just a stopover for errands, but the gravitational center of the Inland Empire’s consumer life. Montclair felt like it was now competing with the “real” malls. People came from all over the Inland Empire – from Upland, Rancho, Ontario, even as far away as Chino. The place felt alive in a way it hadn’t before—busy, buzzing, crowded on weekends with teenagers cruising the halls in acid-washed denim and big hair, food trays balanced in hand, neon arcade glow spilling out from Time Out.
The transformation from that remodel was nothing short of seismic. The expansion brought a food court, yes, but more than that it was a re-branding of daily ritual. Suddenly, lunch was not a sit-down affair at a Hollander Cafe table with linen napkins; it was trays balanced on your lap, fluorescent lighting, and a chorus of competing fryers. Farrell’s, with its brass railings and birthday sirens, faded into the background and became a burger join called “Fuddruckers,” while Sbarro and Hot Dog on a Stick became the new shorthand for indulgence.
Becoming My Mall
Once I got my driver’s license and my first car, through the late ’80s and into the mid-’90s, Montclair Plaza became my mall. Not because it was perfect, but because it was the backdrop to that formative stretch of life. The perfume fog of Cinnabon, the smell of Sbarro pizza mixed with the stink of cigarette butt-filled ashtrays creeping into the air once the food court took over.
One little side trip I want to take is that there are some things I don’t remember-which always frustrates me, and one of things I’ve been pondering lately was the restaurants that surrounded the mall, not really a part of it but close enough to share the parking lot, so part of the overall “mall experience.” Farrell’s closed not long after my family arrived in the area, and it seems to me that that may have been the building that shortly thereafter housed a briefly popular “upscale fast food” burger joint called “Fuddruckers.” At almost the same time that this chain started popping up all over the I.E., an almost identical competitor showed up called “Flakey Jakes.” The two restaurant chains were so similar that it was almost impossible to tell them apart inside.
Back then, it was all a kind of sideshow to me—the way businesses seemed to move in pairs, like synchronized swimmers. Farrell’s fading out while Flakey Jake’s and Fuddruckers popped up, each one a mirror of the other with their self-serve topping bars and wood-paneled “upscale burger joint” decor. It was funny in a cynical teenage way: I’d look at them and think, you’re all going to crash and burn anyway.
Of course, I didn’t understand the machinery behind it yet. I didn’t know that when a fad fizzled, the investors—the people who ought to have taken the hit—would usually walk away cushioned by tax write-offs and paper losses, while the workers were left jobless and the buildings shuttered. Back then, I only knew the surface spectacle: shiny new signs in the parking lot, lines out the door, and the eerie déjà vu of two chains that looked so similar inside you could barely tell them apart.
Both chains are gone now, of course, but if you walk in to a Red Robin today, you’re basically seeing the same thing.
Another nearby eating establishment was a place called “The Big Yellow House.” Apparently this was another short-lived chain – their schtick was that their buildings looked like big old country farmhouses on the outside and interior decor themes were similar to Cracker Barrel today, and I recall that when that place closed in the early ‘80s, that building was vacant for years until it finally became mediocre Italian place called Sarafino’s. That didn’t last long either – a year, two tops – and then it was a Chinese place called “3-6-9 Shanghai.” I don’t remember what it was after that – last time I was in the area it seemed like it might now be a Mexican restaurant, but I can’t be sure as the amount of construction over the last 25 years has masked a lot of what I remember. As for the building that was Farrell’s and may have later been Ruddfu-er, I mean Fuddrucker’s, fortunately one of my best friends who still lives in the area to this day remembered that that was the building that was actually bulldozed some time in the late 80’s after the roof was raised on the mall. Torn down and paved over: man, now that’s what I call gone!
Montclair was flawed, a little generic, but it was woven into the fabric of who I was becoming. When I look back now, I realize that what I really miss isn’t the mall itself—it’s the life it represented. A time when working-class families like mine still had enough to spend a Saturday shopping, grabbing lunch, and letting their kids roam in relative safety.
Then and Now
And yet, what sticks with me is less the food than the psychology of the place. The mall ceased to be utilitarian. It was no longer where my mom dragged me for Penney’s slacks or May Co. towels; it became a place where teenagers were expected to orbit endlessly, feeding quarters into arcade machines, loitering in record stores, staging little dramas on those broad tiled walkways. For the first time, Montclair Plaza began to feel like a stage set designed for our restless performances.
It wasn’t glamorous—never that—but it grew into something louder, shinier, more aspirational. That low one-story building with its anchors became a proving ground. You could trace the entire cultural weather system of the mid-80s by who was standing under the skylight: mall-wave kids with feathered hair, denim jackets gone pale at the elbows, girls carrying shopping bags that doubled as fashion accessories.
Today, the mall has been structurally altered again, and I suppose its current handle, “Montclair Place,” is supposed to sound more “hip” or something. It’s been re-skinned, re-tenanted, re-branded. But the ghosts are still there if you know where to look. Every time I think about it, I can still see the diners sitting in the interior facing windows of the Hollander Cafe’s tile surrounded entrance, still hear Farrell’s birthday drums, still see the statue of Bob’s Big Boy with his burger held high. Montclair may have been utilitarian, maybe even a little underwhelming—but it was a part of my formative years, that pre-internet age that is rapidly fading into memory. And that, dear readers, is why I write this blog, and-I would like to think-why you might read it: to try to preserve some of these memories from the time before digital cameras; so we can remember the cultural stew in which the generation of rebels and malcontents that are “X” was spawned.
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