The Kettle Cheese Bread

The Kettle Restaurant

1776 West Lincoln Avenue
Anaheim, California

1950 – 1994

The Kettle Restaurant barely made a splash when it opened in 1956, but within just a couple of years it was billing itself as “Anaheim’s Landmark Devoted to Good Eating.” While there may have been a bit of hyperbole in the branding, the food at the Kettle could be adventurously different from the standard restaurant fare of the day.

This was mostly thanks to Frank “Doc” Bila, who owned and operated the Kettle Restaurant with his wife, Ruth. One newspaper columnist described him as a “gourmet’s gourmet.” In 1941 Doc had opened the Buckaroo nightclub in Bellflower, California, only to be called into military service following the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor later that year. Back in the business after the war, Doc and Ruth were dreaming up menus for the “International Nights” that packed patrons into the Kettle every Monday night. One week, for example, in a salute to “rich Danish gastronomy,” the Bilas served up such specialties as smørrebrød, brown bean soup, roast goose with apple and prune stuffing, red cabbage, browned potatoes, and Danish crescent rolls.

By 1959 the Kettle Restaurant was doing so well that Richard Duffy, the developer behind three of the newest “motor lodges” in Anaheim (the Peter Pan, the Alamo, and the Jack ’n Jill), designed and built the Kettle Motor Hotel next door, probably with Doc Bila as a part-owner. The following year Duffy sold his interest in the motel to focus on yet another, much larger, project, the Jolly Roger Inn.

The Bilas undertook a big remodeling of the restaurant in 1973 only to have a fire break out in its piano-bar area, damaging a collection of oil paintings and forcing them to close a couple of months for repairs.

In 1977 Doc was ready to retire, and the Bilas found buyers for the restaurant in Bill and Judy Van Solingen, the owners of the highly successful Captain’s Quarters restaurant in Long Beach. The Bilas went on to establish the Bila Legacy Fund at the Orange County Community Foundation to support the causes they cared about the most, and today, among other causes, it provides scholarships to students who are interested in pursuing careers in restaurant and hotel management. (Doc Bila would die in 1991 at age 89, Ruth in 1996 at age 85.)

By the late 1980s, the Kettle had lost most of its luster as a restaurant that served “superb food in a quaint atmosphere,” and in time its patrons had to dance to recorded, rather than live, music. After it closed in 1994, the Mexi-Casa—an old-style Mexican restaurant in Anaheim—moved in. (It would close in 2021.)

While the Kettle Restaurant is long gone, the Kettle Motor Hotel is still in business next door.

Print Recipe

The Kettle Cheese Bread

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The Kettle's trademark Cheese Bread was a far cry from the exotic dishes prepared for the “International Nights” that packed patrons into the restaurant every Monday night, but nonetheless it was a long-remembered specialty of the house.

Ingredients

1/4 pound unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
1 long loaf of French bread, cut into 3/4-inch-thick slices

Instructions

Cream the butter and gradually blend in the cheese.

Prepare the oven for using the broiler, adjusting the top rack so that the bread will be 4 to 6 inches from the heat.

Spread one side of each slice of bread with the butter-cheese mixture. Arrange the slices in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet.

Slide the baking sheet into the oven on the top rack and broil for 3 to 5 minutes or until the slices are just golden brown and bubbly. (Watch carefully, as the slices can burn quickly once they start to brown.)

Remove from oven and serve hot.