Jay Fiondella bought the struggling Dawn Cafe in 1959 for a reported one dollar, opened with showgirls and a circus elephant, and somehow that set the tone for the next six decades. Chez Jay has been a Santa Monica Historic Landmark, a Rat Pack hangout, a celebrity sanctuary, and the place where Daniel Ellsberg allegedly passed the Pentagon Papers to a New York Times reporter at Table 10. The no-photography policy that protected Sinatra and Steve McQueen still holds. Alan Shepard smuggled one of Jay’s house peanuts to the moon on Apollo 14—the so-called Astro-Nut now lives in the restaurant’s vault. The nautical decor, porthole windows, sourdough burgers, and cheap well drinks haven’t changed much either. Half a block from the Santa Monica Pier, at the end of Route 66, Chez Jay remains proof that you can’t manufacture history.
