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Clifton's and the Cafeteria Reformer

A man who sold cheap soup took on a mayor, and the investigator working with him took 186 pieces of shrapnel.

Collection: Los Angeles · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

Clifton's Cafeteria entrance and red sign
Clifton's Cafeteria entrance and red sign · The Erica Chang, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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How the story begins

No one would be turned away for lack of money. That was the rule at Clifford Clinton's cafeterias in the Depression, this one included, though its doors are shut now. There were nickel meals, and for some a penny bowl of soup and rice. In 1937 Clinton got onto the county grand jury and pushed it to look at vice in the city of Mayor Frank Shaw. His committee reported six hundred brothels.

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Visiting

648 South Broadway, Downtown. The cafeteria opened here around 1935 and the owner gave up on reopening in 2026. Closed. Exterior only, from the sidewalk.

Sources

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