Golden Spur Restaurant

The Golden Spur's original 1918 building served as a stagecoach stop on the regional stage routes connecting Glendora and the surrounding foothill communities to Pasadena, Los Angeles, and the Inland Empire towns. The stagecoach era in Southern California was already in its final years by 1918 — automobile travel was rapidly replacing horse-drawn transportation across the region — but stage routes continued to serve some rural and connecting routes through the 1920s, and a building with a good location along a major regional corridor made sense as a small eating-and-rest stop for stage passengers and the early automobile travelers who were beginning to dominate the same roads.

The transition from stagecoach stop to roadside diner happened gradually across the 1920s. When U.S. Route 66 was officially designated in 1926, the highway followed essentially the same alignment that the stage routes had used for decades — the path through Glendora was already an established travel corridor, and Route 66's national designation simply formalized and elevated what had already been a busy regional road. The Golden Spur's building had already been informally serving travelers and was well-positioned to become a designated Route 66 stop.

The Western-themed decor that defines the current Golden Spur — wagon wheels, brass spurs (the source of the restaurant's name), saddle and bridle displays, wood paneling, lantern-style lighting, vintage photographs of Glendora and Southern California from the 1900s through 1950s — was developed during the 1930s and 1940s as the restaurant grew into its full Route 66 diner identity. Subsequent ownership across the decades has preserved rather than modernized the aesthetic, which is the reason the interior reads today as a genuine vintage Western-themed diner rather than a reconstructed retro concept.

Breakfast is the Golden Spur's strongest meal and is served all day. The standard breakfast menu includes traditional omelets (Western, Denver, ham-and-cheese, vegetarian, and a substantial chef's special variation), pancakes (buttermilk, blueberry, banana, chocolate chip), French toast, biscuits and country gravy, country-fried steak and eggs, and the standard egg-and-meat plates. Portions are generous — the standard breakfast plate is genuinely a meal and a half by typical urban-restaurant standards — and prices are reasonable for the portion size.

The lunch and dinner menus overlap substantially and emphasize traditional American diner items. Burgers are hand-formed and competent (the standard cheeseburger is reliably good neighborhood-diner quality), with various premium variations including the bacon-cheese burger, mushroom-Swiss burger, and chili cheeseburger. Sandwiches include the classic Reuben, French dip, BLT, club, and tuna melt. Salads (Cobb, chef, chicken Caesar) are respectable. The hot lunch and dinner entrees — fried chicken, country-fried steak, pot roast, hand-cut steaks, the Friday fish fry — are where the kitchen's competence really shows. The hand-cut ribeye is the most-praised entree by reviewers.

Beverages and desserts complete the diner format. Coffee is included with most breakfast orders and refills are free. Soft drinks, milkshakes, and milk are all available. The dessert case typically includes apple pie, cherry pie, peach cobbler, and a rotating cheesecake selection. The combination of generous portions, reasonable prices, and competent traditional American diner execution makes Golden Spur a reliable choice across a wide range of meal occasions — from a quick breakfast on a Glendora errand morning through a full sit-down family dinner.

The Golden Spur dining room is a single-room space seating roughly 70 to 80 customers across a combination of booth seating along the perimeter walls and four-top tables filling the center floor. The booth seating is the preferred choice for most regulars and offers a more private, leisurely dining experience. The four-top tables turn over more quickly and are the standard placement for larger groups. There is a small counter with about six stools for solo diners or quick orders.

The Western-themed decor is the dining room's defining visual feature. The walls are covered with vintage photographs of Glendora and surrounding Southern California communities from the 1900s through 1950s — Glendora's downtown in the citrus-grove era, the Mount Baldy and San Gabriel Mountains backdrop, vintage Route 66 photographs, and the standard period-piece imagery that establishes the restaurant's vintage identity. Brass spurs and bridle hardware are displayed on the walls; wagon wheels and saddle displays are arranged in corners.

The regular customer base is one of the most loyal in Glendora. Multi-generational Glendora families have eaten at the Golden Spur across decades, and the standing breakfast crowd of regulars who arrive at roughly the same time each morning is a defining feature of the restaurant. Visitors and Route 66 travelers are warmly welcomed and are a substantial part of the weekend customer base, but the daily rhythm of the restaurant is set by the local regulars who treat the Golden Spur as a second home.

The Golden Spur pairs naturally with other Glendora Route 66 stops for a substantial day in town. The natural plan: morning breakfast at the Golden Spur (arrive around 8am for the regular morning atmosphere and easy seating), then drive five minutes west to The Hat for late-morning or lunch pastrami if appetite permits, then continue to The Donut Man for an afternoon strawberry donut (if it is strawberry season). The three stops together form one of the most distinctive Route 66 food days available on California's stretch of the Mother Road.

Beyond the food stops, downtown Glendora — along Glendora Avenue, just south of the Route 66 corridor — is worth a walk-around for travelers with extra time. The downtown maintains a walkable Main Street character with specialty shops, cafes, antique stores, and the Glendora Chamber of Commerce visitor information point. The Rubel Castle — a folk-art castle built by hand by Michael Rubel across more than five decades, located in the foothills just north of downtown Glendora — is a substantial folk-art destination that offers guided tours by reservation.

For Route 66 road-trippers, the Golden Spur is a natural complement to the broader California Route 66 itinerary. Travelers continuing west pair Golden Spur breakfast with afternoon stops in Pasadena (about 15 miles west) — including the Fair Oaks Pharmacy soda fountain and the Old Pasadena historic district. Travelers continuing east pair the Golden Spur with stops in Rancho Cucamonga (about 5 miles east), including the historic 1848-era Sycamore Inn and the 1937 Route 66 Service Station visitor center. The Golden Spur is the natural Glendora breakfast anchor for either direction of travel.

Breakfast hours (typically 7am to 11am) are the busiest period of the day, with weekend mornings the peak. Saturday and Sunday breakfast can involve 15 to 30 minute waits, especially around 9am to 10:30am. Weekday breakfast is substantially easier; visitors who can arrive on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning will find the restaurant relaxed and seated quickly. Lunch (11am to 2pm) and dinner (5pm to 8pm) are moderately busy but rarely involve significant waits.

Parking is available in a small attached lot and on adjacent streets. The lot can fill up during peak breakfast hours and short walks from street parking are common on weekend mornings. The restaurant accepts cash and most credit cards. Prices are reasonable for the portion size — breakfast plates typically run $10 to $16, lunch sandwiches and burgers run $11 to $18, and dinner entrees run $16 to $28. The hand-cut ribeye and other premium dinner items are at the higher end; standard breakfast and lunch items are at the lower end.

The Golden Spur is family-friendly with a kids menu available and high chairs and booster seats provided. Dress is casual and no reservation system is in place — the restaurant operates first-come-first-served. The combination of generous portions, reasonable prices, vintage atmosphere, and Route 66 history makes the Golden Spur one of the most genuinely worthwhile Route 66 restaurant stops in the Los Angeles area and a reliable choice across a range of meal occasions and visitor types.