Greetings family and friends!  " The Largest Display of Pottery on the Pacific Coast" was the claim of this local Roadside Attraction. Here's the story.......

Roadside Distractions   

THE INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN

There was once a popular and thriving roadside attraction right here in our own backyard that attracted folks from miles around. The story begins in 1937 when the von Querner family opened a small gift shop featuring locally made and Mexican pottery on Niles-Centerville Road in Washington Township, a region rich with farms, orchards and nurseries about a half mile south of the village of Niles. To attract folks from the creek side picnic grounds in Niles Canyon, a small restaurant was added to the pottery business that grew into a Sunday afternoon destination for hundreds of hungry customers from throughout the East Bay. Within a few years a larger dining area was constructed by the von Querners with additional seating to handle the increasingly bigger crowds. A banquet room and cocktail lounge were added and attractive lawn and outdoor garden areas with ponds, water features and colorful plantings were created. By the 1950’s upwards of two thousand dinners were being served on a typical Sunday afternoon. Promoted as the “Largest Display of Pottery on the Pacific Coast” an enlarged gift shop entertained diners awaiting seating as well as creating additional business, however what brought customers back time after time was the “home style cooking served in colorful surroundings” and a clever menu that each day featured cuisine from a different country (The “International” Kitchen). In addition to parties, celebrations and special events, Washington Township service clubs often used The International Kitchen’s large banquet room in the early1950’s for conversations about the value of incorporating the individual villages of Mission San Jose, Warm Springs, Irvington, Niles,and Centerville into a single city. Business at the Kitchen dwindled as local orchards, farm stands and nurseries began being replaced by housing, and unfortunately in 1960 a fire destroyed the once popular restaurant. Attempts to return the rebuilt facility to it’s former popularity were never realized and sadly in the 1970’s The International Kitchen was permanently closed and demolished. Motorists on today’s Peralta Blvd. have no idea that this was once the site of Fremont’s own unique Roadside Attraction.    -Bill