COFFEE SHOPS DISH OUT TIMELESS FOOD, SERVICE.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Staff Writer

Coffee shops and diners - those informal eateries with their characteristic counters and satisfyingly high-calorie menus - trace their history in the Valley to the 1940s.

As Bob's Big Boy was rolling its restaurants out across the country, it found hungry crowds in the San Fernando Valley, siting its sixth outlet on Riverside Drive in Burbank.

``It's the oldest one in existence today,'' said Mark McCabe, whose Canyon Country-based M & S Management has owned the franchise since 1993. The building itself is owned by a Costa Mesa general partnership.

Bob's owes its long life to its proximity to the Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co. studios and the ample offices and homes surrounding it.

``We've more than doubled sales since 1993,'' said McCabe, who started with the Bob's chain in 1965 and worked his way up the ranks.

Du-Par's Restaurant & Bakeries chain founders James Dunn and Edward Parsons also saw the potentially lucrative market in the San Fernando and Conejo valleys, opening restaurants in Studio City in 1948 and in Thousand Oaks in 1961.

``They were one of the first restaurants in the Valley, the first in Thousand Oaks,'' said Shirley Oberst Kauffman, vice president and general manager of the small, family owned chain. ``They went to places that were developing.''

The chain was bought in the mid-1970s by Herbert W. Oberst, Kauffman's father, who died in August.

Eateries such as Bob's, Du-Par's, the 42-year-old Art's Deli in Studio City, Bobby's Coffee Shop - a fixture on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills since 1943 - and others have survived by offering consistency of product and service.

One Du-Par's customer who keeps coming back for more is Gene Stein, who lives about three blocks from the Studio City restaurant and has been a regular since about 1951.

He eats at the restaurant at least once a day, usually for breakfast. The food, down-home ambience and good service keep the 77-year-old happy.

``I would walk on my hands and knees to get here,'' Stein said.

Marilyn Williams, who has been with the company 30 years and is now vice president in charge of administration, convinced Oberst to keep the company's headquarters in the Valley when he decided to move it from its Van Nuys location 20 years ago.

``He was looking all over, and at that time space was limited in the Valley. And he said, `Where will you go?' and I said, I won't leave the Valley,'' said Williams, who lives in West Hills and didn't want a long commute to work.

So Oberst chose Encino, where Du-Par's offices are to this day.

Through all those changes, some things like Du-Par's hotcakes, French toast and cheese rarebit have been on the menu from day one.

But to keep an increasingly health-conscious public happy, Du-Par's has added the likes of grilled veggie sandwiches and turkey sausages.

McCabe, who in 1971 was a night manager at the Bob's he now runs, said that his restaurant keeps its customers returning by offering the fresh foods they hanker after these days.

Still, the restaurant keeps a pathway to a simpler past open through its Friday night classic car shows.

``It's a return to more of a family atmosphere - it's nostalgia,'' McCabe said.

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Photo

PHOTO Mark McCabe, who started with Bob's Big Boy in 1965 and worked his way up through the ranks, owns the Toluca Lake franchise.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer