Regular Jon's Pizza

I guarantee (if you grew up in or around Brentwood) some of those memories include Regular Jon's. I'm not sure how old I was when my parents first took me to Regular Jon's but I was very young. It was the place your team would celebrate it's wins and the place your parents would take you when you lost the game. It was the place your school, synagogue, or church held it's fund raisers. It was the p

lace where you had your birthday party and it was a place to have fun. For me, as I think back it all started with the old red fire engine. Some of you may not even remember the fire engine (Jon got rid of it when he added on in the 80's). The fire truck was parked right out front. It was the coolest thing ever! I loved the sawdust on the floor, the 8mm movies projecting the Stooges or cartoons, I loved the free lollipops in the bucket up by the bar next to the old school pinball machines (long before the video games in the opposite corner); I loved when my parents took me because I knew I would always see one of my friends. It was the place you just went for pizza and a fun time. When I was 14 or 15 Jon gave me my first real job. For the next 3 years I worked on and off at Regular Jon's, mostly after school and on the weekends. Then... a couple of months after I graduated high school, I was at work and Jon told me he was closing the doors at the end of the month... His 20 year lease was up and to stay would have meant an unbelievable increase in rent, over 20 times what he was currently paying. Jon was forced to leave, and that was that...

On August 31st 1991 it was over. Jon did re-open on Pico near Beverly Glenn but it wasn't the same, and soon it too was just a memory. Like many things from my childhood growing up in Brentwood, I didn't realize how much I would miss it till it was gone.