> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Longtime downtown diner to close its doors - URL: https://www.smdp.com/longtime-downtown-diner-to-close-its-doors/ - Published: 2003-05-12T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T02:08:04.000Z - Author: John Wood - Tags: Business, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless *Dee’s has fed Santa Monicans since 1941* Finding a solid, home-style breakfast downtown will be harder this summer. Dee’s Diner, the family-owned coffee shop on Santa Monica Boulevard between Third and Fourth streets, is planning to close its doors forever, perhaps in as little as five weeks, owner Bob Moini said on Friday. Le Pain Quotidien, an upscale French bakery, will take its place. Managers for the bakery are currently waiting on the final permits from City Hall. However, not everyone is looking forward to the change. A diner for everyone The coffee shop, which opened in 1941 and has remained virtually unchanged as Santa Monica has built up around it, will be missed by a broad swath of locals. “Everybody comes in here,” said Mike Moini, 19, son of owners Bob and Debra, who bought the restaurant in 1979\. “Firemen, police, business people, homeless people, movie people, council people — everyone.” On any given morning, the shop’s dedicated band of regulars can be found sitting at the old counter scarfing down generous portions of bacon and eggs with side orders of hashbrowns. Tiffany lamps hang from 18-foot ceilings to flower-print booths that run six-rows deep. The diner seats 60 but rarely hits capacity and workers at Dee’s said there’s never a long wait for a table. On Friday, Frank Sinatra crooned quietly over the shop’s stereo, as he regularly does, and Robert Barnas, a retired newspaper cartoonist for the now-defunct L.A. Herald-Examiner, ate breakfast at the counter before a movie. “I know what I’ll get here,” said Barnas, a Hollywood resident who has frequented Dee’s for more than 20 years. “It doesn’t change.” > “It doesn’t change.” Why change a good thing? Moini has offered the same menu items at more or less the same prices for decades. The only changes he’s made to his restaurant over the years occurred when he put a new coat of paint on the walls and installed some earthquake retrofits at the city’s request. Even the employees at Dee’s seem to have found their groove. Reginald Aguayo, the diner’s cook, has been with Moini for more than 23 years. Moini hired him when the A&W Drive-in, where they both once worked, folded in 1980. 3B7,“They treat me like part of the family,” said Aguayo, who has already found a cooking job next door at Brittania, a British-style pub. “There’s not really much of a difference between boss and employee here.” Moini said he’s gone out of his way to make sure his employees will be looked after when he closes his doors. Maribel Garcia, a waitress at Dee’s for the past eight years, has been offered a slot at the new bakery. And if she doesn’t like it, Moini, who boasts numerous connections downtown, said he will help her find a spot that she likes. Sandy East, who’s been waiting tables at Dee’s for more than three years, won’t need Moini’s help. East said she’s leaving for Las Vegas with her husband, where she can play the slots and the two can start a heating and air conditioning business. > “Everybody comes in here – firemen, police, business people, homeless people, movie people, council people — everyone.” — Barnas, a Hollywood resident who has frequented Dee’s for more than 20 years. - MIKE MOINI Son of diner owner All of Moini’s employees who need it will receive full pay while the bakery remodels, a process that is expected to take about three months, Moini said. What about Bob? After nearly 25 years as a coffee shop owner, Moini is proud of his track record. He’s closing Dee’s because he wants to and not because creditors are knocking at his door. While he hasn’t gotten rich from the business, he is quick to point out that he put two daughters through college — one at Georgetown, the other at UCLA — and said Mike is headed to UCLA next year and maybe on to law school. When he talks about his diner, Moini gets wistful but retains a touch of a Mafioso in his demeanor. Mike, whose been working shifts at the diner since he was 15, jokes that Moini tells friends and customers that he is from Sicily. In reality, Moini is proud of his Iranian heritage. He moved to the United States in 1972 and worked a handful of jobs in service stations, delis and local hotels. When the two twin German brothers named Dietrich — which is where “Dee’s” comes from — put the coffee shop on the market in the 1970s, Moini bought it for $400,000. “I’m going to miss (Dee’s),” he said. “But I’m going to remember the four o’clock morning wake-ups — go to central market and get vegetables every day.” Croque madame, anyone? Moini spent two years finding the right business to take over his space. Though it is a chain — there are more than 100 Le Pain Quotidien in Europe and another handful in L.A. and New York — Moini said the French bakery is a perfect fit. “It’s not like the kind of chain that looks like McDonald’s where everything is uniform,” he said, calling the soon-to-be operators “very nice” people. “The food is the same but everything else is different.” The bakery will serve high quality, fresh breads and other French-style meals, Moini said. There will be a counter, several tables and a small patio on Santa Monica Boulevard. The new tenants will pay Moini $7,000 a month in rent, a far cry above the $400 a month he paid briefly before buying the building. Moini, who says he’ll be making more as a landlord than he ever did as a restaurateur, plans to try his hand at the retired lifestyle and do some traveling with Debra. In the meantime, Santa Monicans said they’ll suffer without Dee’s. No more cops ordering breakfast before their shifts begin. No more hungry people shy a few dollars strolling in to take advantage of Bob’s generosity and credit. No more goofy tourists stumbling into the coffee shop in search of a solid breakfast that won’t strain their pocketbooks. Locals say Dee’s represents a different time, before Santa Monica was caught up in the wave of commercialization that some say has stolen a part of the city’s charm. “It’s the last real Mom-and-Pop cafe around,” said Rashada Odom, who works at the upscale shoe store next door. “This place is becoming so big that they’re forgetting about the little things that make Santa Monica wholesome — the important stuff.” \- Mike Moini, son of owner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/051203-03_03-7.jpg) Dee’s Restaurant owner Bob Moini and his son, Mike, sit outside the Santa Monica Boulevard cafe. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 12, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051203.pdf?ref=smdp.com)