Built in 1937 and closed in 2005 to make way for a low-income housing development, Algemac’s classic facade remains—its interior now serves as a community center for said development.

First opened as Harvey’s Broiler in 1958 and renamed Johnie’s Broiler in 1968, the former drive-in's original structure was partially (and illegally) demolished in 2007. Great pains were taken by preservationists to reconstruct it; Johnie’s became a Bob’s Big Boy in 2009.

Designed by Wayne McAllister in 1949, Bob’s Big Boy Burbank (a favorite of Jay Leno, America’s former Late Night Leader) is often cited as of the earliest examples of Googie architecture in LA. Leno and his pals like to rev their classic cars in the parking lot every Friday night.

Covina Bowl, opened in 1956, has a striking A-frame entrance that brought people in the door for more than six decades. A coffee shop, restaurant, barber shop and salon, children’s playroom, cocktail lounge, and 50 lanes for bowling kept patrons there and coming back.

Originally designed with an Egyptian theme, its concrete walls leading to the entrance were made to look like ancient ruins. The Los Angeles Conservancy calls it an “exuberant” and “stunning” example of Googie design and midcentury bowling alleys.

In 2017, after 61 years in business, Covina Bowl closed its doors. Its slated for partial preservation as part of a larger residential project.

The Driftwood Dairy Drive-Thru, originally known as the Driftyland Dairy-Port, has been an El Monte institution since 1961. Above it, Drifty, the dairy’s grinning cow mascot surveys her territory from a huge, hexagonal sign, as she has for decades.

Five Points is a car wash in Whittier that looks like it’s about to launch into outer space.

Completed in 1953, this is the oldest surviving McDonald’s in existence, with a mediocre-at-best museum attached to prove it. If you're a fan of dust-covered plastic toys and eroding videotapes filled with footage of now-dead McDonald’s CEOs, drop by!

One of legendary Googie architects Armet and Davis’s first designs, this former Kerry’s Coffee Shop was completed in 1953. Most Googie coffee shops in the Valley, unfortunately, have been demolished—in spite of it all, though, Kerry’s keeps on truckin’, now as a Mel’s.

One of Armet and Davis’s most well-known works, along with Pann’s and the Holiday Bowl (which was demolished in 2003 to make way for a shopping center, naturally), this Norms location is the oldest still in operation. “The elongated diamond-shaped trusses, the sloping roof, the long open stretch of glass that looks out onto the boulevard.

Today, these are Googie architecture staples, and standout images that themselves have become immortalized as art,” writes Farley Elliott at Eater LA. In 2015, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission intervened to save this Norms from redevelopment.

Also opened in 1961, LAX’s space-age Theme Building went through a $4 million renovation—including lights designed by Walt Disney Imagineering—in 1997, right before a restaurant called Encounter took over the space. The restaurant is closed now (with no plans to reopen), and airport officials are trying to figure out what to do with it.

You can still book a room at Pasadena’s Safari Inn, one of the few intact vestiges of California’s Golden Age of Motels. The rooms have been modernized and are somewhat bland, but the fantastic neon sign from the 1950s and safari-themed metal sculptures still remain. According to writer and LA historian Alison Martino, the motel has appeared in True Romance, Apollo 13, Six Feet Under, Desperate Housewives, and The Partridge Family. 

The design of the dramatic, swooping Union 76 gas station is the work of Chinese-American architect Gin Wong of the firm William L. Pereira and Associates. (Wong, a longtime associate of Pereira, is also credited as the designer of the Theme Building at LAX.)

The station’s soaring concrete canopy was described by writer and occasional architectural critic Tom Wolfe as a “‘spherical triangle’, whose swooping lines and up thrust ends reach for the sky,” says a landmarking report for the city of Beverly Hills. (The city landmarked the gas station in 2018.)