Where do you go for fried rabbit at 2 a.m.? SLO diner was the spot for all-night shenanigans
In a town that rolled up its sidewalks at night, some people needed a place to go at 3 a.m.
For over a generation in San Luis Obispo, that place was Farley’s.
It stood on the corner of Marsh and Morro streets where Barnes and Noble now sells books.
Farley’s was home for seniors who needed a place to go at Thanksgiving, barflies who weren’t ready to go home after last call, or students who had an all-night study session.
And the ambiance was pure 1950s diner. (OK, maybe the macrame hanging plants were added in the 1960s.)
Restaurants are tied to memory in a way unlike many public spaces. Food, family and friends are a powerful combination, and it was a sad note this week to hear that F.McLintocks is closing this week after 51 years.
Farley’s closed so long ago that there were racks for seven different newspapers out front.
And the menu — it wasn’t standard diner fare. There were unique choices only seen on the Farley’s menu, like fried rabbit.
You’ll have to read on to see the others.
Mark Brown wrote this Telegram-Tribune story Feb. 26, 1986:
SLO eatery landmark, Farley’s, to close
Virtually anytime day or night for more than 25 years you’ve been able to walk into Farley’s Family Restaurant, settle on a red vinyl seat and put away an omelet, fried rabbit, pancakes, a burger or a beer.
Better hurry if you want to do it again; after 8 p.m. Sunday, Farley’s is closed forever.
“We were offered an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” owner Tom Mees said Tuesday afternoon, sitting in his restaurant in downtown San Luis Obispo. “It’s been very rewarding, quite frankly, but very draining at the same time.”
Mees owns the corner lot at Marsh and Morro streets where his uncle started the restaurant in 1959, but come St. Patrick’s Day — exactly 10 years to the day after Mees bought out his uncle — the property will be turned over to developer John French.
French declined to comment on what his plans were for the site.
Since 1959, Farley’s doors were open 24 hours a day except for Christmas and New Year’s until a year ago when Mees cut the hours back to 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Now after millions of meals, 4,000 employees and countless customers, cooks at the restaurant will serve up the last meals while stocks of supplies dwindle.
It’s not a matter of a restaurant going under because of rising rents or stiff competition, though Mees noted the number of restaurants in San Luis Obispo rose from 22 to 130 in 10 years.
But running a 24-hour restaurant doesn’t leave much time for other things.
When Mees decided to buy the restaurant in February 1976, he was sitting in his office at General Mills Corp. in Minneapolis. It was snowing outside and cold.
“I thought, I could be playing golf in San Luis Obispo, go to the Golden Tee,” Mees said. “Now here it is, 10 years later, and I still haven’t been to the Golden Tee.”
The restaurant will be missed.
“I just hate to see them close,” said Mabel Aldridge of San Luis Obispo, who has been on both sides of the counter at Farley’s. “This place has a food of its own. To me, it’s a landmark.”
Mees agreed.
“A lot of customers have damn near broke down and cried” when they heard the news, he said.
It tugs at him, too, leaving a part of his life behind. Leaving his customers, especially the elderly people who have been regulars for years, hurts.
The eatery has for years been “a haven for seniors whose families were far away,” he said. “On Thanksgiving, Farley’s was their home. They come in and ask me ‘Why is Farley’s going away?’”
It’s easy to understand their feeling. While the rest of San Luis Obispo has been renovated with tourism in mind, Farley’s has been stable. The same Formica counter runs the length of the restaurant, the same seats and booths in front of it.
The old-fashioned Hobart mixer in the kitchen has turned out more than a million cream pies and has been there since the place opened, along with the high-speed malt maker used for making Farley’s fluffy omelets.
The memories are probably most vivid for Mees. He worked in the restaurant for his uncle starting at age 15. A few summers later, he met his wife-to-be, who was working as a waitress on the graveyard shift.
And then there are the things that happen in a 24-hour restaurant.
“I remember one time at 2 in the morning, we had a rugby team from Wales come in and started singing, just like the seamen do in the galleys,” he recalled. “Scared the hell out of me.”
He’s also watched romances blossom – and wilt – among Farley’s employees.
Those and other remembrances will go in the book he’s working on, “As the Burger Turns: The Trials and Tribulations of Running a 24-hour Restaurant.”
Farley’s was unique for food not found other places — the fried catfish with hushpuppies, the rabbit, the boiled tongue and spinach, the oxtail soup.
And none of this frozen stuff for Farley’s.
“In a month, we go through an average of 1,000 pounds of flour, 800 pounds of sugar and 600 pounds of hotcake flour,” Mees said. “That shows that this is homemade stuff.”
For Mees and his wife Pat, the future includes a catering service in which they will apply the skills they’ve learned in the past 10 years.
CORRECTION: The first reference to the location of Farley’s was incorrect and has been updated to the correct Marsh and Morro Street location.
This story was originally published October 26, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
