I was never a “regular” at the Original Saugus Cafe, which is closing after almost 140 years in business. In fact, I only had breakfast there once, in the late 1980s. But the memory of that single visit has stayed with me. A friend, Lee Siegel, then a science writer for the Associated Press in Los Angeles, took me there for breakfast before an all-day hike at Devil’s Punchbowl.
He insisted we needed a good meal to fortify ourselves, and he was right. I remember breakfast being excellent, hearty enough to fuel us for an entire day of hiking. It was my first time hiking Devil’s Punchbowl. At one point during the hike, Lee casually informed me that I was standing directly on the San Andreas fault line. Half-jokingly, I accused him of putting my life in danger. For the rest of the hike, I couldn’t stop thinking about what might happen if “the big one” suddenly hit. Another thought running through my head was that if I was going to be swallowed up by the San Andreas fault, like Nicole Kidman playing Lois Lane in the “Superman” movie, at least I had a good final meal at the Saugus Cafe.
The closing of the Original Saugus Cafe is a reminder that we don’t have to be regular patrons or visitors to a place for it to matter. Sometimes, a single moment can be enough when it leaves an everlasting memory, as my visit to the Saugus Cafe with my friend Lee Siegel did.
Philip Wasserman
Stevenson Ranch
