My experience was also with the Downtown Location in the 1950’s. We would take the 5 car (trolly) from Hawthorne.
Yes the memories of S. Calif. from those days are great.

What memories this topic brings up.

As a kid, I loved the roast turkey and dressing and awesome  cafeteria-as-Disneyland atmosphere at the downtown Brookdale location.

During my last visit on a Sunday a few years ago, Brookdale was filled with young Hispanic parents and their children. How wonderful that Clifton s tradition has been passed to a new generation.

Two hints about visiting the downtown location: During weekday office hours, the Brookdale location should be an easy and reasonably safe walk from the better downtown hotels. You ll probably find lunch crammed with nearby office workers. If driving, do not park east of Broadway, which would put you in perhaps the worst skid road in the U.S. an intimidating, wretched, and shameful environment for such a progressive city.

I am glad that I took the time to look up the Web-site! Alter my first trip down Memory-Lane to read the Forest decor, not the Tropical! I had forgotten about their growth into the Mall-World. My experience was with the Downtown Location.

Check their website for the history and current location.
http://www.cliftonscafeteria.com/
AL[:I]

Ohmigod, I think I remember the Clifton’s in West Covina. Wasn’t it in the Eastland Mall. I think I remember a piano. As a kid, I used to think it had some association with the Lawrence Welk show.

[:D] I remember the Lakewood cafeteria VERY WELL as a little "mutant". We used to play at the mall, and a favorite game was to stare into the windows with chewed up gummy worms, popcorn..etc!! Hey, we were 10 yo’s!!!
Frank

it’s just okay these days; watch the neighborhood, and good luck finding a parking space!

I used to go to the Clifton’s in the West Covina shopping mall every now and then . I would get the hot turkey with gravy (hand carved)
It tasted good ,but they were real careful with the portion.
I was still hungry after. It is about 45 minutes east of downtown LA, , but that’s with miraculous perfect traffic conditions.
More like at least an hour, and don’t drive it between 3 pm and 7 pm!

I used to also go to the one in the Lakewood mall. Unfortunately the mall got rid of them, cause they wanted to get more trendy .
They put a food court in upstairs (but yet it was not where Cliftons used to be , anyway). The food court is such a generic one, too!

That was my favorite Clifton’s location… RIP Lakewood Cliftons’

Only as a child, Brookquarry. My memories were full of wonder at the waterfall and tropical decor and someone helping me point out jello with whipped cream on it and meat loaf and corn and sitting with Mom and Sister while music played quite loud as we ate. Yeah, it was a special place. I did see on some food-history program recently that it was being preserved and is still in operation in the Downtown location. I cannot vouch for the quality of the food since my recall is from visits that took place at least 55 years ago.[:(]