Located at 860 South Pacific Coast Highway, Cafe Frankenstein boasted a steady diet of beats, surfers, folkies, teens and all manner of weirdos, and was suspected of harboring drugs and other debauchery.
Artists Burt Shonberg, Doug Myres (the Gateway Singers) and writer George Clayton Johnson (Twilight Zone, Logan's Run) were the proprietors.
[3] Shonberg also painted murals for Hollywood's Purple Onion, Cosmo Alley, the Bastille, the Seven Chef's and Pandora's Box, as well as advertising art for Fairfax Avenue's Sandalsville, Don Brown's local surf movie events and a coterie of album covers (including Arthur Lee & Love's 1969 LP Out Here).
[4] The Frankenstein's steady diet of controversy started early, with police busts for spiking the espresso with brandy[5] and for allowing a woman to be photographed nude against the inside murals.
Folk[6] and Jazz music[7] emanated from the inside out onto the porch, with singers such as Judy Henske, Steve Gillette (who later wrote songs for the Stone Poneys) and Lee Mallory (later with Sagittarius, Millennium) performing here during the early '60s.