This is the place where an Anita Baker ballad slips through the speakers and the smell of bacon floats in an irresistible fog.
Regulars (and who isn’t?) push through the glass door and sink into a red folding chair hankering for their usual order. The salmon croquette and the catfish are favorites, but the grits are always the star, arriving shimmering in butter and crowned with a fistful of shrimp.
This is the place where Mr. Elliott calls ahead every Thursday to request a cheese omelet, sourdough bread, hash browns and extra grits to share with his wife. Barbara Shay, the chef and owner, sometimes tosses in an extra blueberry muffin or a slice of red velvet cake.
Ms. Shay is the heart of this establishment and doing what her mother once did — a daily dance between the kitchen and the customers whose names she calls out as they enter, her talent for chitchat serving as her own distraction.
She is gregarious and warm but displeased with those who inquire about the exact ingredients in her flavorful coffee. “Don’t come in here and ask me what’s in my recipes,” she likes to say.
Otherwise, she is happy to launch into one of her stories — the time an admirer bought her a Corvette, the time she danced on “Soul Train” and met the show’s host, Don Cornelius. Her daughter, Annisa Faquir, 39, manages the books and the register and reminds her that the grill is still sizzling, the orders piling up.
Because of them and the relatives before them, the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop has always been the place in Altadena — the one you think about when you’re far from home and the one you rush to when you return.
But this is a wistful scene of before. Before the windows shattered and flames tore through the walls and the roof collapsed. Before it all crumbled into sorrow and word spread of the unthinkable: the Little Red Hen had perished.
This was the place.
And now it is among the fields of ash that make up Altadena, a town of 42,000 reeling from the devastation wreaked by the Eaton fire.
A longstanding institution, the Little Red Hen had helped anchor the community for decades. Customers were often the second or third generation of local families. Black-owned, it was also a reminder of the deep roots of a historic enclave, one that had established itself in a seemingly idyllic corner of Los Angeles County during the Civil Rights era.
It was Rena Shay who bought the cafe on Fair Oaks Avenue in 1972.
She had been living in Jackson, Miss., with her 12 children when her husband, an Army veteran, died of tuberculosis. In 1963, in search of a new environment for the family, she decided to head to California. They settled in Pasadena, where their neighbors included Jackie and Mack Robinson, the siblings and Black athletes who broke barriers. Later, Rena used her late husband’s Veterans Administration benefit to buy a house that came with a swimming pool in nearby Altadena.
Rena, who worked as a silk finisher, was in high demand at dry cleaning and alteration shops across the region. But the travel wore on her, so when the Little Red Hen went up for sale, she was eager to purchase it.
She scraped together her savings and three of her daughters chipped in the rest. At the time, it was rare for a woman, especially a Black woman, to own a business.
The demands of a restaurant were never-ending, and Rena would arrive at dawn to start rolling out the biscuits. The original clientele was racially diverse and stuck around for the roast beef, Salisbury steak, sweet potato pie and banana splits.
“My mom lost a lot of weight when she first took it over, just like anybody would do when you’re coming into that kind of job, because you don’t think about eating. You just prep and the customers come in, so you just work,” Ms. Shay said.
On weekends, a line would form outside. Rena’s children were expected to help. Her son Lonzia Shay worked in the kitchen.
He introduced new dishes like oxtails and neck bones and smothered chicken. Around that time, middle-class Black families were flocking to Altadena. Most of them were pushed to the west side by real estate agents who tried to keep them out of white neighborhoods. Many with Southern roots found that the Little Red Hen, also on the west side, gave them a taste of home. By 1980, Black residents made up nearly 43 percent of the population in Altadena, according to census data.
It was not unusual to walk in and see a police officer, a local official or someone you graduated from high school with sitting near the soda fountain. Comedians like Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx and Flip Wilson were known to stop in. When it was crowded, which it often was, it buzzed with a frantic energy.
“Some of them have short patience because it’s a small place, and there’s one cook, and everybody wants their food at one time,” Mr. Shay said in a 2001 interview with The Pasadena Star-News, a daily newspaper.
“And I have like 15 orders in, and 26 people waiting — it gets hectic. But the majority of them hang pretty good, so I have to give my customers credit.”
The wall became dotted with photos of celebrities, including the director John Singleton, whose mother lived in the area. It also featured a letter from President Obama and a rendering of Mickey Mouse talking to a version of the cafe’s hen that was drawn by Floyd Norman, a Black artist known for his work with Walt Disney.
Mr. Shay officially took over when his mother retired, and was still running the business after she died in 2010 at 81 years old. A handful of years later, he himself was ready to retire after the death of his wife. He received multiple offers, but insisted that the cafe stay in the family.
That is how Ms. Shay, his sister and a real estate broker, came to own the business. She cleaned it up, slicked on a fresh coat of paint and installed ceiling fans. Out front, she added a display for homemade baked goods that people could see from the door. Her siblings, children and grandchildren were often given tasks.
They muddled through the coronavirus pandemic, relying on to-go orders and impromptu dining on the sidewalk. The diner shut down for a couple weeks so the red bar stools and counter could be swapped for a steam table with offerings like meatloaf, catfish flown in from New Orleans and chicken with rosemary picked from Ms. Shay’s garden.
The clientele included older residents who reminisced about the early days of the cafe as well as visitors fresh off a hike.
“I made everyone feel welcome — I don’t care if you had four eyes and antennae, I would still serve you and happy to do it,” Ms. Shay said. “It was just that feeling of comfort food, good food, the best coffee in town.”
The restaurant was closed when the fire came the night of Jan. 7, demolishing entire neighborhoods before the flames closed in on the diner. Everything burned. For locals stunned by their own losses, the razing of a hub — their hub, their place — has been a dispiriting blow.
“Everywhere I’ve been since the fire, people have said to me, ‘Oh, the Little Red Hen is gone!’” said Horace Wormely, 75, a longtime regular. “It’s like losing a family member.”
Mr. Wormely, a retired director of the Pasadena parks and recreation department whose own house burned in the fire, recalled taking his young son to the cafe nearly once a week decades ago.
He and legions of supporters hold out hope that it will reopen one day. The community has been devastated, but its bonds still remain. The need for gathering is great.
Ms. Shay has been searching for a way to continue feeding people. Maybe a food truck or a borrowed kitchen space for now.
Wherever she ends up, she believes, it could still be the place.