The wood-fired smoke that once curled out of Chris & Pitts BBQ's log-cabin dining room on Artesia Boulevard has gone out for good. After 75 years serving Bellflower, the barbecue institution has permanently closed its doors, leaving longtime regulars mourning a piece of Southern California's roadside history.
The closure, first reported by WhatNow, ends a run for the restaurant at 9839 Artesia Blvd. that stretched back to the middle of the 20th century. The location had not offered a specific reason for the shutdown, according to that report, but the closure did not come entirely out of nowhere. As Los Cerritos Community News reported, the Bellflower building had already gone dark temporarily in July for structural repairs on the aging, 75-year-old facility before management made the permanent shutdown official this month.
With Bellflower gone, the chain's footprint has shrunk to a single restaurant: the Downey location at 9243 Lakewood Blvd., which opened in 1953 as the sixth Chris & Pitts to open its doors, per the same outlet's reporting. Chris & Pitts BBQ has encouraged customers to visit that Downey restaurant, where the company says it will continue serving the same classic barbecue dishes, ribs and signature sauce the chain has been known for. In a statement, the company thanked its loyal customers and dedicated employees.
A 75-Year Run Ends on Artesia Boulevard
The Bellflower building itself was part of the draw. Its 1950s rustic log-cabin exterior and wood-paneled dining room, where meats were cooked over a live wood fire, gave the restaurant a roadside charm rarely found in Southeast Los Angeles County anymore, according to Los Cerritos Community News' reporting.
For customers, the closure felt personal. Bellflower patrons have been sharing memories of the restaurant on social media, with one customer calling it iconic, according to WhatNow. Another customer told the outlet they grew up eating at the restaurant and later brought their own children there, while a third recalled that their father worked at Chris & Pitts as a dishwasher back in the 1940s.
From a $2,000 Loan to a Regional BBQ Empire
Chris & Pitts traces its roots to 1949, when founder Chris Pelonis established the barbecue brand in Southern California. His path there started nearly a decade earlier, in 1940, when Pelonis began his restaurant career in Lynwood using a $2,000 loan from his Greek immigrant father, teaming up with partner Maurice Pittman before the pair launched the first official Chris & Pitts joint, according to L.A. in a Minute. That first spot reportedly featured sawdust floors and wooden chairs inside a converted dry-cleaning shop.
The chain eventually grew into a Southern California barbecue staple, at one point running more than 15 locations across Los Angeles and Orange counties, including outposts in Anaheim, Bell, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, North Hollywood, Torrance and Van Nuys, per L.A. in a Minute's account. Pelonis ran the business for nearly 70 years before he died in Los Alamitos at age 96 in 2018, according to The Downey Patriot.
A Chain in Contraction Long Before Bellflower
Bellflower's closure is only the latest chapter in a decades-long contraction. The chain's Whittier location at 11350 E. Washington Blvd. permanently closed on March 31, 2023, after which its vintage restaurant signs were rescued for preservation by the Valley Relics Museum, according to reporting cited by Los Cerritos Community News. The Downey restaurant has faced its own brushes with closure rumors over the years; in August 2012, management publicly dispelled speculation that the site would shut down after a 46-unit townhouse development was approved on adjacent property to the north, the Downey Patriot reported at the time.
Even the chain's signature condiment has taken on a life of its own separate from the restaurants. The rights to manufacture and distribute bottled Chris' & Pitt's barbecue sauce were sold to a commercial manufacturer years ago, though the remaining restaurants continued purchasing and using the official sauce recipe in their kitchens, according to a report from Rick's Ventura.
The disappearance of these mid-century barbecue landmarks fits a broader pattern across Southeast Los Angeles County, where aging infrastructure and shifting real estate pressures have squeezed out legacy dining institutions built in the postwar boom. Bellflower still has one other notable barbecue holdout nearby: Hambone's BBQ Smokehouse at 9825 Belmont St., less than half a mile from the shuttered Chris & Pitts, became that company's sole location in December 2023 after its Huntington Beach site closed amid a parking lot construction project, as Hoodline previously reported.
For now, anyone chasing the smell of live-fire barbecue and the familiar red sauce will need to make the drive to Downey, where Chris & Pitts BBQ says it will keep the tradition alive as the chain's last restaurant standing.
