Fox’s, Altadena – When I was a little kid… probably up until I was about ten… my dad would take us to Fox’s diner in Altadena for breakfast on some weekend mornings. Fox’s was a perfect fantasy grandma’s house that hadn’t changed since the 1950s. It was decorated with foxes everywhere, obviously. I don’t have a lot of sweet childhood memories of my dad, but this semi-tradition is one. There was nowhere else to go for breakfast in Altadena, and I remember waiting outside under the fox-shaped sign for a table. And I remember being very excited that I was going to get tomato juice and pour pepper into it, probably just like I’d seen my parents do with their bloody marys. There is a comfort that I don’t know how to describe that exists in certain memories, like even in childhood when nothing was really wrong, there was relief in waiting outside Fox’s with your parents, knowing you were going to get tomato juice and one of those “famous” muffins that definitely came from a Jiffy box. Fox’s is still there, but it has new owners now. There are not foxes all over the walls anymore, and I just don’t understand why. | 2020 |