We opened on Painter Ave in 1996. Whittier College was across the street then and it is across the street now. A lot of everything else has turned over.
Thirty years in one spot teaches you something about what a neighborhood actually needs from a restaurant, and it is not what most restaurants think.
What Uptown Whittier Is
Uptown is the old part of town. Greenleaf Avenue, the brick storefronts, the theater, the Saturday farmers market. It is walkable in a way most of Southern California gave up on decades ago, and it has held onto independent businesses longer than it probably should have.
We are a few blocks off the main stretch on Painter, next to the college. Close enough to be part of it, far enough that parking is not a negotiation.
The Third Place
There is an idea that people need three places. Home, work, and somewhere else. The somewhere else is where you go without a reason. No occasion, no reservation, no plan beyond wanting to be around people.
Uptown Whittier has fewer of those than it used to. That is the job we have been trying to do for thirty years, and it is why the room is set up the way it is.
You can come in alone at 8am with a newspaper and nobody will rush you. You can bring nine people for a birthday. You can sit at the bar on a Saturday and watch a fight with strangers who will be arguing with you by the third round. Same room.
Breakfast All Day Is a Neighborhood Decision
We serve breakfast from open to close. Not until 11am. All day.
That sounds like a menu choice. It is really a decision about who we want in the room. A contractor coming off an overnight shift at 2pm wants eggs. A nurse finishing at PIH wants pancakes at four in the afternoon. A student with an 11am class wants breakfast at 11am.
Restaurants that cut breakfast at a set hour are optimizing the kitchen. We would rather optimize for the neighborhood.
Every Week
Trivia on Wednesdays at 6:30. Bingo on Thursdays with two seatings, free to play with any food or beverage purchase. Lotería nights. Live bands on select Fridays. Every Dodgers game, every UFC card, college football on Saturdays.
Happy hour runs 2pm to 6pm Sunday through Thursday.
None of it is a promotion. It is a reason to be somewhere on a Wednesday, which is the whole point.
What We Actually Cook
California cuisine, which around here means we never picked a lane. American classics, Mexican, Mediterranean, seafood, pizza, pasta, steaks.
That is unfashionable. Every consultant in the last twenty years would tell you to narrow the menu and pick a concept.
But a neighborhood restaurant is not a concept. It is the place a family of five with completely different opinions can all eat, which means the grandfather gets his steak, the teenager gets a burger, somebody gets the Mediterranean salad, and the kid gets pancakes at dinner. If we narrowed the menu we would be a better business on paper and a worse restaurant for this street.
Thirty Years of Showing Up
We have supported the Whittier Area Chamber of Commerce, the Uptown Whittier Association, the YMCA, the Boys & Girls Club of Whittier, The Whole Child, Fix'n Fidos, the Silver Shield Foundation, the Hathaway Golf Classic and the PIH Health Foundation Golf Tournament.
During COVID we sent meals to the staff at Whittier Hospital Medical Center & PIH and multiple hospitals and organizations in need.
We run fundraiser nights for local schools, teams and nonprofits, 20% back, all day, and catering counts too.
None of that is complicated. You are either part of a place or you are renting space in it.
Come By
California Grill & Bar, 6751 Painter Ave, Whittier, CA 90601. Open 8am every day. Close 9pm Sunday through Thursday, 10pm Friday and Saturday.
Full bar, outdoor patio, kids menu, and a doggie menu for the patio.
Visit us, see what is on this week, look at the menu, or order online.
Family-owned since 1996. 4.4★ from 2,100+ Google reviews.