Pig'n Whistle Corporation

The year was 1927. And Hollywood was just coming into its own when the Pig 'N Whistle was born.

Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer" introduced "talkies" to an audience accustomed to silent movies.

On the Boulevard, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened. (Two years later, the hotel would host the very first Academy Awards ceremony.) Across the street, showman Sid Grauman opened his famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

The Chinese was Grauman's second grand movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard. His first landmark cinema there had been the Egyptian Theatre. The Egyptian had opened five years earlier (in 1922) with the world's first movie premiere, of Douglas Fairbanks' "Robin Hood". And in 1927, Fairbanks and his wife, Mary Pickford, were the first to immortalize their hand and footprints in the wet cement outside Sid's new Chinese Theatre.

So where does the Pig 'N Whistle enter this scenario? Well, when we think of going to a movie, most of us think of popcorn and candy and soft drinks.

But back in 1927, movie theatres didn't have concession counters inside their lobbies. Movie-goers still wanted to eat, of course, but they couldn't do it in the theatre. So an enterprising soul took advantage of the opportunity and opened a family restaurant and soda fountain right next door to the Egyptian, where movie-goers could have a meal before or after seeing the film.

It was called the Pig 'N Whistle, the name inspired by it's fanciful logo of a dancing pig playing a flute. A side entrance to the new family restaurant opened right out into the grand courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre, so movie-goers could easily move from the restaurant to the theatre and vice versa.

From July 22, 1927 to the late 1940's, the Pig 'N Whistle served a loyal Hollywood audience and became something of a Hollywood landmark, surviving both the Great Depression and World War II.

Among its fans were any number of celebrities during Hollywood's Golden Age. Shirley Temple was a regular. Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young, Howard Hughes and Barbara Stanwyck all dined there. A story in "Film Fan" magazine tells about young Judy Garland's day out with friends at the Pig 'N Whistle, back in 1939, the year she made "The Wizard of Oz." Johnny Weismuller, of "Tarzan" fame, was served a soda by a young singer named John Gary, who worked there as a waiter.

Although the original Pig 'N Whistle contained an ice cream parlor and a candy counter in front (with dining in the back), it was always a fine, elegant restaurant, due in no small part to its spectacular interior decor, a Gothic mix of ornate dark woods, heavy beams, paneled ceiling and stained-glass windows. An organ player entertained guests up front.

But as the 50's approached, Hollywood was changing. Elizabeth Short (AKA "The Black Dahlia") was seen at the Pig 'N Whistle in the weeks before her gruesome murder. By 1949, the Pig 'N Whistle was closed, it's wooden booths purchased by the nearby Miceli?s Italian Restaurant.

Later, Chris Breed & Allan Hajjar (who gave us the celebrity-laden Sunset Room) gifted the Boulevard with a $1.5 million makeover of the Pig 'N Whistle, painstakingly restoring the landmark space to its original Art Deco luster, re-opening the landmark in 2001.


Certificate: Preferred Stock, issued in the 1920’s

Printer: Schwabacher-Frey Company, San Francisco

Dimensions: 8” (h) x 12” (w)

State: DE-Delaware

Subject Matter: Restaurants and Fast Food

Vignette Topic(s): Eagle Featured

Condition: Vertical fold lines, punch hole and stamp cancels in signature areas and body, and some toning and edge faults from age.