Chris & Pitts BBQ Closing Bellflower Location After 75 Years

Chris & Pitts BBQ Closing Bellflower Location After 75 Years

Longtime Artesia Boulevard landmark says goodbye to generations of customers; Downey restaurant will remain open

LCCN Staff Report

BELLFLOWER — After 75 years of ribs, steaks, barbecue sauce and generations of family dinners, Chris & Pitts BBQ is closing its longtime Bellflower location on Artesia Boulevard.

The restaurant announced the closure Wednesday, thanking customers and employees who helped make the Bellflower restaurant a local institution for three-quarters of a century.

“75 wonderful years in Bellflower — thank you!” the restaurant wrote in announcing the closure.

Chris & Pitts said it was saying goodbye to its “beloved location” and thanked its loyal customers and employees for decades of memories, friendship and support.

The restaurant at 9839 Artesia Blvd. has been part of Bellflower’s landscape for generations, with its unmistakable old-school exterior and menu of ribs, steaks, sandwiches and other barbecue staples. Chris & Pitts traces its history to 1949 and bills itself as the “Home of the Live Woodfire.”

The closure, however, does not mean the end of Chris & Pitts.

The company said its Downey restaurant at 9243 Lakewood Blvd. will remain open and encouraged longtime Bellflower customers to continue visiting that location.

The restaurant did not announce a final closing date or give a reason for shutting down the Bellflower location.

The Bellflower restaurant had apparently experienced problems earlier this summer. In July, the business was listed as temporarily closed, and an owner response to a customer review attributed the closure at the time to repairs needed at the aging building and directed customers to the Downey restaurant.

For longtime Bellflower residents, the loss is more than another restaurant closure. Chris & Pitts was one of those increasingly rare Southern California establishments that seemed permanently attached to the landscape — the kind of place where grandparents, parents and children could all claim memories of eating there.

After 75 years, the Bellflower location is finally leaving the table.

The barbecue, thankfully, is still being served in Downey.