Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café
1928

17575 Pacific Coast Highway 
Architect:  Mark Daniels
California Mediterranean, Spanish Colonial Revival with Moorish influences. 

A rare example of a 1920s neighborhood commercial building in Pacific Palisades; one of a few examples remaining from this period. Built in 1928, it served as a shopping center for the nearby Castellammare housing development. In the early 1930s, actress Thelma Todd and her lover/business partner, movie producer Roland West, opened a restaurant on the ground floor of the building called Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe. She lived in an ocean view apartment on an upper floor; an exclusive Hollywood Club called Joya occupied the rest of the second floor. Thelma Todd appeared in over 40 films, including several with the Marx Brothers. The 1930’s beach side café named for the infamous actress and celebrity Thelma Todd, who’s mysterious death at this site has became an unsolved Hollywood legend.