The Brown Derby

Vine Street’s Brown Derby, opened on Valentine’s Day, 1929, and was once Hollywood’s most famous restaurant. It was the chain’s second location, after the original, which opened on Wilshire Blvd. in 1926. Owner Robert Cobb took over the franchise from co-founder Herbert Samborn. The inventor of the “Cobb Salad,” Cobb also pioneered the practice of furnishing celebrity tables with telephones. Hollywood A-listers frequented the Hollywood Derby, with its walls lined with movie star caricatures; Clark Gable even proposed to Carole Lombard in Booth 54. After damage by fire and later an earthquake, the location was demolished in 1994.