Long before lattes and skinny sips, La Jolla nurtured a wide and interesting variety of coffee houses and tearooms. The atmospheres in these vintage operations ranged from public roof gardens to the intimacy of Green Dragon Colony founder Anna Held’s house, where her collection of dolls often were invited to the occasions. One of the first of the commercial establishments had an “Alice in Wonderland” namesake — The White Rabbit Roof Garden, an open perch above a building at Girard Avenue and Prospect Street with a breathtaking view toward the Cove and Scripps Park (present site of The Spot). Opened in the early 1900s, the White Rabbit featured beverages, ice cream and candies served in a breezy wide-open atmosphere sheltered overhead by a precarious arrangement of palm fronds. (On windy days, customers’ drinks turned into small cups of liquid surf — very Lewis Carroll!). Another fashionable tea room of La Jolla’s early history was the Gli Chiostri, housed in a handsome architectural cottage at 228 Coast Blvd. Inspired by culinary treats of Italy and Vienna, the specialties included fancy tea cakes, gingerbread men, plum pudding, assorted nuts and chocolates, ices, pies, imported cigarette brands — and, of course, very stiff espressos. An adjacent gift shop offered novelties like Giotto reproduction prints, Old Master postcards and Viennese leather items. High above Emerald Cove on Goldfish Point in these early days, too, was the Crescent Café, a convex-shaped building near the caves where snacks and beverages could be savored with an incredible north-shore view after a visit to the caves — specifically Sunny Jim Cave, which had become a tourist attraction after professor Gustav Schultz dug the steps to its entrance. Unfortunately, the Crescent burned to the ground in 1915, believed to be set afire by William Peck, the same arsonist who burned Ellen Browning Scripps’ South Moulton Villa on Prospect Street. Two other establishments of the early 1900s, both on Prospect Street, were Miss Bee’s Tearoom and the White Lunch, the latter operated by a young woman named Rosalind Washburn with the help of her eight-year-old daughter, Veola. The idea of fancy little tearooms for the most part bit the dust in La Jolla with the arrival of the Depression in the 1930s. The World War II years also left La Jollans with little time for such trivial entertainments as did the 1950s when dinettes and diners became the scene. The coffee house idea came back to La Jolla with a bang, however, in the 1960s, when entre-preneur Bob Sinclair opened the first Pannikin on Prospect Street — an immediate success with the young student crowd from the newly established UCSD campus. In a short time, Sinclair opened a more full-fledged operation at the Pannikin’s present site at 7467 Girard Ave., where it continues to do a steady business. Meanwhile, numerous other coffee houses and tearooms have come and gone over the last three decades. Others, like Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, Brick & Bell and Latte by the Sea have become and continue to be popular social gathering spots. The corporate giant Starbucks seems to particularly recognize La Jolla as a great market for teas and lattes. When a new Starbucks opens at 1055 Torrey Pines Road it will be the fifth in La Jolla, adding to already-existing operations on Prospect and Pearl streets, La Jolla Boulevard and in the Vons Market on Girard.
