<i> Adios, </i> Argos : Downtown Redevelopment Kills an Institution in Temple City

TEMPLE CITY —  The Argos Family Restaurant is the kind of place you used to find just about anywhere. There are wide, tufted-vinyl seats, imitation Tiffany lamps, a revolving dessert case with an assortment of cream pies and Jell-O and a waitress behind that counter who calls you “hon.”

“Be right with you, hon,” says Joan Rethorn, a patient woman with gray-flecked hair. After more than 10 years at the Argos, Rethorn knows just how most of the regulars like their eggs cooked and she knows the punch lines to all of their jokes.

But this day is no laughing occasion. The Argos--which has been in business, under one name or another, for 40 years--is about to close its doors forever.

Sometime in the next month, the familiar eatery at the corner of Rosemead Boulevard and Las Tunas Drive will succumb to bulldozers. Along with the Bank of America branch a few doors down and half a dozen bungalows just to the north, the Argos has been seized by the city’s Redevelopment Agency as part of what it calls “Block A.”

On Thursday, the Argos’ last day of operation, customers hugged Rethorn and the other waitresses, squeezed the hands of Loukas and Mary Kolonelos, the owners for the last 10 years, and talked gloomily about where they’d go to eat now.

“I have a friend who always seems to be in here,” said Gayle Schaffer, who started patronizing the restaurant as a Temple City High School student in the early 1970s. “He said he didn’t know what to do, so he went out and bought a microwave oven.”

The restaurant has not only been the meeting place of choice for senior citizens and businessmen for the last 20 years, its 60-seat banquet room also has served as a meeting room for everything from the Optimist Club and the Toastmasters to local Bible study groups, political lunches and high school sports awards dinners.

In place of the Argos and other structures on the block, developers will build a Music Plus outlet, a T.J. Maxx clothing store, a new Bank of America branch and a four-store “food pavilion”--all of which will bring in about $250,000 a year in new revenue to the city, city officials say.

“We’re a community struggling for survival,” said City Manager Karl Koski, explaining why the city used its power of eminent domain to remove a beloved institution like the Argos.

Nonsense, say the more polite patrons of the Argos, many of whom helped to vote three incumbent City Council members out of office in April precisely because of their support for projects such as Block A.

“Part of the frustration is that, after people got up and said they didn’t like the idea, the council members just nodded their heads and then went ahead and voted for it anyway,” Schaffer said.

The fight to save the Argos, which employed 19 people, and the condemned homes on Elm Avenue still rankles, say critics of redevelopment. Beginning three years ago, they collected more than 2,000 signatures on petitions, jammed public hearings and wrote elected officials. But last August, the city nevertheless condemned the property and sold it for $3.5 million to Champion/LSB Associates Development Co. of Long Beach. The developer expects to break ground on the new shopping center next month.

“It’s gotten to the point where the city is just looking toward short-term monetary satisfaction, not toward the wants of its people,” said Schaffer’s husband, Dale.

For longtime patrons of the Argos, the idea of replacing their favorite restaurant--which offered a four-page menu and such daily specials as broasted chicken for $5.25 and broiled halibut for $6.75--with a food pavilion just doesn’t make sense.

“It’s a perfectly good building,” said Paul Hould, eating his regular breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and toast at the counter. “There’s no need to tear it down.”

Especially when the city’s historic downtown, along Las Tunas Drive, seems to be doing a slow fade, he added. “Just drive down Las Tunas and tell me how many vacant stores you see,” he said. “Then tell me we need another shopping center.”

Mike Papac, Hould’s regular breakfast partner, predicted disaster. “They have one of those T.J. Maxx stores down in Whittier,” he said. “It’s just 2-by-4s and plastic walls. In two years, this’ll be a ghost town.”

City officials say the new shopping center not only will bring 300 new jobs to the city but it also may have a kind of spinoff effect, sending new shoppers to the sputtering businesses on the downtown commercial strip.

Temple City is without property tax revenue, which limits its options, said Koski. “It’s a difficult decision, but it’s one where there are no other alternatives,” he said.

Hardest hit by the closing of the Argos are the city’s senior citizens. “You know when a bunch of older people come to a restaurant that the price is good and the food is good,” said Lona Berchtold. “Young people might be satisfied with a hamburger. But not senior citizens.”

Under the friendly guidance of the Koloneloses, the Argos had become both meeting place and vital resource for the city’s older citizens.

“They go out of their way to please you,” said Eugene Molnar, sitting at the counter with his wife, Ruth.

“Some places they just throw the food at you,” said Ruth Molnar. “There’s no courtesy.”

The couple said they ate at the restaurant at least every other day. “And when we don’t feel up to frozen dinners at home, we’ll take food out,” said Eugene Molnar.

Madie Smith, who was evicted in March from a house on Elm Avenue, part of the same redevelopment project, said her 80-year-old husband had been sick ever since the couple were forced to move five miles to Rosemead.

“All of this has piled up on him,” she said. “We figured we could stay close to things. We could shop across the street, the restaurant was right here and our doctors were close by. Everything was convenient for seniors around here. Then they kicked us out for nothing.”

Loukas Kolonelos said he had discussed with the developers the possibility of opening a restaurant in the new shopping center. “But they’re looking for fast-food places,” he said. “It’s better income for them--more rent, more sales tax for the city. Now I pay 57 cents a square foot--$2,850 a month. They want $3.12 a square foot plus an annual cost-of-living increase.”

For Mary Kolonelos, a thin, friendly woman with a look of worry about her, the closing has been traumatic. “The restaurant has been a big education for us,” she said. “We’ve mixed with all kinds of people here--young people, old people, educated people, everyday people. We’ve come to love this community. That’s what hurts the most. It’s like a big family here.”

Rethorn got to the Argos at 5:15 a.m. Thursday, just as she has done most weekdays for the last 10 years. She made coffee and iced tea, put out the creamers and started filling out tickets for her early-morning regulars--who traipsed in as soon as Loukas Kolonelos unlocked the front door.

There was Gus from Inglewood--”He works in Industry, but this is the only place he likes to eat,” said Rethorn--and Pat from Covina. The regulars come from as far west as Chatsworth and as far east as Fontana, she said.

“They’ve all been having a fit for the past two weeks,” Rethorn said. “The love that emanates back and forth with people here is something. Sometimes I just have to walk away so people won’t see my tears.”

Waitress Elsa Espinosa was working the counter that morning, too. “People get up and say, ‘I’ll see you,’ like we’re going to be here tomorrow,” she said. “Like we’ll be back. It’s a weird feeling.”