More than 2 million bowls of pea soup served annually.
Until now?
California’s famous roadside restaurant, the century-old Pea Soup Andersen’s near Highway 101 in Santa Barbara County, has quietly closed, according to SantaBarbara.com, which first reported the news. There is no indication of the changes on the Pea Soup Andersen’s website and no message on the Buellton restaurant’s phone line.
However, an employee at the second location, in Santa Nella, which remains open, said Wednesday that the original Buellton/Solvang restaurant will be back in business after redevelopment of the property.
Rumors about the restaurant’s fate are swirling at Buellton City Hall and in this community where so many residents worked their first jobs at Andersen’s. And tourists up and down the state of California who are accustomed to stopping for soup on their way between the Bay Area and Los Angeles are worried they may be bereft of bowls.
SantaBarbara.com reported that the restaurant, which sits on a 3.36-acre lot at 376 Avenue of the Flags, was “put up for sale in 2021, though the adjacent Pea Soup Andersen’s Inn was not included in the offering.”
According to the Buellton city planning department, no documents for construction on that site have been filed as of Wednesday. “We’re just as clueless as everyone else is about what’s happening with this property,” said an official who reported that a sign on the door says the restaurant is closed for renovations and would reopen in two or three years.
Until then, tourists can get their fill near the Interstate 5 route between Northern and Southern California. The Santa Nella location is in Merced County.
Andersen’s storied history was chronicled by the Restaurant Guy columnist: “The famed California restaurant was founded in 1924 by Anton and Juliette Andersen, immigrants from Denmark and France, respectively. They settled in the Solvang area, today still known for its Danish influence, and opened Andersen’s Electrical Cafe for travelers between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The most popular dish was Juliette’s French recipe for split pea soup. It quickly became their hallmark.”
According to the columnist, the first of the legendary roadside billboards depicting cartoon chefs Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee were installed in the 1930s. Some near Buellton have been designated as historical landmarks, he wrote.
That’s not an option for the building itself because there is no historical designation in the Buellton municipal code, according to the planning department.