Dave Alley
BUELLTON, Calif. (KEYT) – The demolition of the iconic Pea Soup Andersen’s restaurant has moved forward after a recent decision made by the Buellton City Council.
Last week, council members removed a historical designation on the closed business that clears the way for the property owner to tear down a portion of the vacant building.
“In order to in order to allow the demolition, we needed to remove the historic landmark designation,said Scott Wolfe, Buellton City Manager. “In removing the designation, the City Council also put in place a number of requirements that have to be met for the demolition permit to to be issued, and those requirements will be memorialized in an agreement that will be signed by the developer and the city prior to a demolition permit being issued.”
The famous restaurant first opened in Buellton in 1924 and for decades was a popular destination for both travelers and locals alike.
However, the restaurant closed in 2024 just months before its 100th anniversary and since then the main building and adjacent structures have fallen badly into disrepair.
All of the buildings and surrounding parking lots have become a squalid sight, with broken windows, overgrown weeds and trash strewn around the property.
For the past two years, it’s been a common area for trespassing, unauthorized occupation, as well as illegal activities such as vandalism, drug use and drinking
“It’s a disaster,” said Wolfe. “It’s become increasingly difficult to secure the building. It’s constantly being broken into by vandals and it’s just a matter of time before someone gets injured or somebody gets killed in the building.. There’s very little of the inside that is still remaining and there’s not a whole lot we can do to save the building at this point. It is beyond hope. This is painful. This is a this is something that’s been around for as long as anyone who’s still living here can remember, but it’s it’s clear that it has to go.”
While the City Council has given clearance to the demolition of the building, not all of the structure will be taken down.
“One of the largest pieces of the historic landmark that’s still on the site is a portion of the building which was prior to it being part of Pea Soup Andersen’s was part of an old hotel called the Bueltmore Hotel that is eligible for listing by the state as a historic landmark,” said Wolfe. “That part of the building that faces the parking lot right now, that part of the building will remain, but everything beyond that and all the outbuildings and such will be brought to the ground and removed.”
Wolfe did not give a timetable when any demolition would take place and added its unknown what the future plans are for the site that is owned by local developer Ed St. George.
“The future plans are up in the air,” said Wolfe. “We don’t know. The specific plan for the Avenue of the Flags gives a number of different alternatives. It could include retail. It could include office. It could include some residential, or any combination of those three. We have seen some preliminary plans in the past, but those have all been retracted.”
As for whatever eventually replaces Pea Soup Andersen’s, Wolfe stressed it will need to be something unique and special.
“This is one of the gateways to our city,” said Wolfe. “We don’t want to see something very generic being put in there, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the end, the City doesn’t get to pick exactly what gets built, but the City Council has a lot of influence and the Planning Commission, have a lot of influence over what some new facility might look like, and so we’ll be looking carefully at that.”
To help make sure the once historic restaurant is memorialized and its memory kept alive in the future, St. George is looking at ways to retain some of the components of the building so that a potential future monument may be created and displayed.
“What has to happen before that demolition can take place, is the the property owner needs to coordinate the removal of any artifacts that still remain that could be salvaged and preserved, said Wolfe. “We will work with the developer to ensure that some sort of appropriate monument, either on site, or in very close proximity to the site, takes place. We don’t know what that will look like yet. We hope that depending upon the architecture, some aspects of that building could be used in either the exterior architecture of the building or something inside the building, but certainly some sort of monument outside of the building would be important as well.”
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