Above: View of the Mission Room restaurant’s modernist design. Photo, Dan Soderberg.
Modernist Murals and Tea
The Mission Room (1961) was a restaurant/tea room with attached coffee shop located on the second floor of a mid-century Modernist-style wing on the south side of the May Company store in Mission Valley Center, designed by William Sperry Lewis, Jr. for LA-based AC Martin. Its distinctive architectural exteriors include pre-cast hexagonal concrete panels, pre-case pebble tile cladding, and two plate glass window stories with a folded plate roof.
“As a significant early work of William S. Lewis, Jr.,” write preservationists, “the May Company building established him as a popular commercial architect, represented a new and successful model for commercial design, and began a new phase in the design of shopping centers.”
Indeed, it was a remarkably modern build in its time. The entire shopping center was constructed above a parking garage, anticipating 50-year San Diego River floodwaters. But was this a design flaw — building in the river bed?
Developers advertised it as “the floating shopping center,” ignoring the fact consumers might have to take a boat in during the rainy season…
The Food
The restaurant debuted on February 20, 1961, was open daily for lunch, teas, and also for dinner guests on Monday, Thursday and Friday evenings. Daily specials included Indian shrimp curry for Friday luncheons and grilled filet of red snapper with a “piquant caper sauce” for Thursday dinner. The adjacent coffee shop seated 44, and had brightly colored green, gold, and white tile counter.
“In this restful and comfortable spot,” one San Diego magazine reported, “women shoppers may choose from salads, sandwiches, low-calorie specials or lush desserts, while enjoying the informal modeling of May Company fashions. For men, there are heartier selections from the varied luncheon menu, and the whole family may partake of such dinnertime favorites as roast prime ribs, steaks and seafoods at moderate prices.”
San Diegans fondly recall the children’s menus — placemats featuring the shopping center’s playground Lily the Dragon, Lily of the Valley, or as some remember her, Lucy the Dinosaur, the “dragon mascot of Mission Valley Center.” Other children’s menus featured Raggedy Ann and Andy. And don’t forget that fresh strawberry pie baked daily by their Austrian pastry chef…
Does anyone have any menus or placemats from the Mission Room? When did it officially close? Let us know!
Concrete play sculpture surrounded by the busy parking lot, with no fences.
The Interior
Large plate-glass windows on three sides of the cafe afforded expansive views of what was then green pastoral land, dotted by dairy pastures, and a new Bowlero Bowling alley across the valley. Spring-loaded, beautifully beaded sunscreens framed in walnut could be adjusted for the comfort of guests. An accordion-folding wood screen could divide the 220-seat restaurant into separate meeting spaces. Custom, 6-foot lighting fixtures were built to illuminate the restaurant.
The Mission Valley Center logo mascot was a stylized swallow, and its use by lessees in visual advertising was encouraged by the Center’s public relations team. “The swallow was chosen as a symbol,” explained PR Director Harry Gagan,“because of the bird’s association with the early California missions.” Thus, birds figure prominently in the Ames-Rudick design.
On its opening, local media outlets were impressed with the artsy Mission Room. “The mural is hand-modeled in low-relief cement, in brown tones with mosaic insets to give color and brilliance to the design. It represents the early associations of San Diego with vignettes of birds, missions, ships and plants. Ames and his staff were three months preparing the model for the mosaic, which took three weeks to install.”
Remains of The Mission Room Restaurant mural created by Art and Jean Ames, with Martin Rudick, in 1960-1961. It had long been painted over. Below are detail images of the “tree of life” and a swallow. Photos, 2024.
May Company Coffee Shop back wall prior to demo, 2024. Bas-relief sculpted mosaic by Art and Jean Ames, with Martin Rudick, 1960-1961.
The Artists
Arthur Forbes Ames & Jean Goodwin Ames
Born in Tamaroa, Illinois, Arthur Forbes Ames (1906-1975) studied at the California School of Fine Art. His career was launched by participation in the Federal Art Project. Ames and his fiancée, Jean Goodwin (1903-1986), designed mosaic panels for the patio of the Newport Harbor High School in 1937, and painted murals in the County Administration Center in San Diego (still there), Jon Lindbergh Junior High School, and the California Federal Building and Loan in Los Angeles, among many others. They were married in 1940 and continued collaborating on murals and public decorations in southern California. During the 1950s he taught at Otis Art Institute.
Martin Kenyon Rudick
Martin Kenyon Rudick (1932-2006) was a student of the Ames’, and his sculptural style belies the source of the Mission Room mural. He earned a master of Arts from the Los Angeles County Art Institute, and had quite a career as muralist and teaching professional. His large glass mosaic murals graced the Orange County Airport for years (demolished for the John Wayne Airport expansion).
The Mission Room in the May Company, Mission Valley Center, 2024.
The Mission Room cafe and tea room in the May Company, Mission Valley Center. Photo, San Diego & Point Magazine, 1961.
Going, Going…
In 1986, local San Diego department store chain Walker Scott closed all of its branches. In 1995, May Company joined with Robinson’s and became Robinson-May Co. Bullocks bought many Broadway stores. The big-name brands were consolidating.
The May Company building became Macy’s in 2006 and eventually, the Mission Room closed. It has been dormant for years, used for storage.
The shopping center was sold by Westfield URW in 2023 to Lowe Development and Sunbelt Investment Holdings. The new owners are proceeding with mixed-use (retail and housing) redevelopment plans for the center — including the May Company building. It was historically designated (HRBS#1203, HRB 16-001), but that designation has been on appeal by the developers since 2016. Some working on the project report the exterior will be preserved and roofs renovated.
Not so for anything inside. The interior of 80,000 square-foot building was emptied and is being readied for new tenants. The demo included mold and asbestos abatement, as well as removal of the kitchen, tilework, lighting fixtures, sunscreens, room dividers, the Ames-Rudick murals and bas-relief sculpted wallwork.
Mission Valley
The Mission Room (1961)
May Company, Mission Valley Center
1702 Camino Del Rio North
San Diego, CA 92108
Does anyone have any menus or placemats from the Mission Room? When did it officially close? Let us know!