Pea Soup Andersen’s in Buellton, California—just off Highway 101 near the Danish town of Solvang—closed without notice earlier this month, surprising locals and others who visited the iconic restaurant over the years.
“There’s a lot of shock here—a lot of sadness too,” Buellton City Manager Scott Wolfe told The Epoch Times. “It’s definitely an iconic part of Buellton. I know everyone was sad to see it go.”
Known for its all natural split pea soup, the restaurant was known for its windmill and old-world Danish charm.
Denmark-born Anton Andersen and his wife Juliette first opened the restaurant at the site in 1924. The couple called it “Andersen’s Electric Café,” in honor of their new electric stove, according to the restaurant’s website.
The home cooking drew visitors in for hot soup in a bread bowl and charming, good food.
The couple first began their new venture by serving simple, wholesome foods, including hot cakes and coffee, ice cream sodas and bakery items to highway travelers. Their first customers were salesmen, tourists and truck drivers who drove through the town on their way to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
According to the restaurant’s website, Juliette was an expert cook from France. Her split pea soup was the most popular, prompting the couple to change the name of the restaurant. Soon they were serving several thousand bowls a day.
The restaurant has changed hands over the years. It was first sold in 1965 to a local man, Vince Evans, who was tragically killed with his family in 1980 in a small plane crash nearby. The restaurant went through multiple ownership changes after that, until a central coast restaurateur, Milt Guggia, purchased it in 1999.
The restaurant’s second location in Santa Nella, off Highway 5, about 122 miles south of San Francisco, was purchased by Mr. Guggia in 2007 and remains open, according to an office assistant at the Guggia’s corporate headquarters in Santa Maria, located in Santa Barbara County, about 160 miles north of Los Angeles.
The Guggia family put the Buellton restaurant up for sale a few years ago. The property was listed in 2020 at $4.7 million.
Locals suspect someone bought the property recently and quietly closed the restaurant after the transaction was finalized.
“We kind of assumed it was a matter of time for someone to come in and purchase the property,” Mr. Wolfe said.
So far, the Guggia family has not disclosed who bought the restaurant or what will happen to the property, fueling speculation, by some, that it might be redeveloped into housing.
The city has yet to receive any permit applications for the property, but whoever might have bought it is facing a difficult renovation, according to city officials.
“Whoever’s got it has got a big piece of work in front of them,” Mr. Wolfe said. “It’s not in the best shape.”
