Memorable Character(s)

HAP-PEA & PEA-WEE

I’ve crossed paths with these comical characters dozens

(hundreds?) of times during travels to Southern California on State

Highway 101 and on Interstate 5 where they appear on billboards

up and down central California enticing travelers to stop at Pea

Soup Anderson’s Restaurants. With mallet and chisel in hand, the

chef duo are pictured splitting peas, one at a time, in a Rube

Goldberg-ish factory setting. Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee are based on

newspaper cartoon strip “Little Known Occupations” and were

adopted as the restaurant’s mascots in 1947. Robert Anderson,

son of the restaurant founders Anton and Juliette Anderson,

commissioned Disney trained artist Milt Neil to re-draw the

characters with the big chef having the easy side of the pea

splitting job handling the mallet, while the little chef with the chisel

is wary of Hap-Pea’s aim. The memorable characters, who’s

images also appeared soup cans and postcards and in early

1950’s stop motion TV commercials, were chosen by Anderson

from thousands of entries received from restaurant patrons.

Anton and Juliette, natives of Denmark and experienced in the

restaurant business, purchased property in the small town of

Buellton near the neighboring Danish Colony of Solvang and

opened a small restaurant in 1924 named for their proudest

possession, a new electric stove. “ Anderson’s Electrical Cafe”

served pea soup, from an old family recipe, along with a selection

of simple hardy fare that appealed to travelers at their convenient

stop on the primary route between Southern and Northern

California. Within four years the successful entrepreneurs with

their son Robert added a hotel and dining room and began

promoting the business as the “Home of Split Pea Soup”. The

property changed hands in 1965 to Vince Evens who added a

miniature train ride, aviary and small zoo creating a popular Danish

themed roadside attraction and serving up to six hundred gallons

of split pea soup daily.

A second location of a Pea Soup Anderson’s Restaurant was

established in 1976 along Interstate 5 in Santa Nella, California

featuring a full service Restaurant, well stocked Gift Shop, Gas

Station, and Danish themed Hotel complete with a distinctive

operating Wind Mill. The two properties have gone through

multiple owners since the passing of Evans in 1980 as well as

several unsuccessful attempts to open additional locations. Just

short of it’s 100 th Anniversary earlier this year the Buellton

restaurant was permanently closed, however Hap-Pee and Pea-

Wee can still be found in Santa Nella,on billboards around the

state, and on soup cans in your local supermarket carefully

splitting peas…one at a time. -Bill