Southern California has lost another restaurant with deep local roots, adding to a recent wave of beloved California restaurant closures. The Depot in Old Torrance served its final meal on September 30, ending chef-owner Michael Shafer’s run of nearly 35 years inside one of the city’s most distinctive historic buildings.
Shafer opened The Depot in 1991 and made the former Pacific Electric Railway station at 1250 Cabrillo Avenue his dining room, bar and banquet space. At 70, he said it was time to retire, telling customers he was ready to “hang up my knives and spatula.” The restaurant’s official farewell set September 30 as the last meal.
Fine dining inside a piece of Torrance history
The setting was part of The Depot’s appeal. The restaurant occupied a former Pacific Electric Railway station designed by architect Irving Gill during Torrance’s early development. The building dates to 1912, the same year the city was founded, giving diners a chance to eat inside a surviving piece of Old Torrance history rather than a conventional restaurant space.
Shafer’s food gave people another reason to return. The restaurant’s final website highlighted dishes such as seared ahi with Persian cucumbers, a curried seafood bowl with vegetables and lentils, and soy-roasted basa with cashew vegetables. Banana cream pie was among the desserts associated with the restaurant, while the bar and banquet rooms made The Depot a place for more than an ordinary dinner.
A dining room woven into family milestones
In his farewell, Shafer wrote that the restaurant had shared birthdays, anniversaries, births and memorials with its customers. He also said he watched his children and customers’ children grow up there. Those words fit a restaurant that lasted through nearly three and a half decades of changing tastes and dining trends.
Local coverage after the closure described Shafer as a chef who knew an extraordinary number of patrons by name. That personal presence mattered in a restaurant built around repeat business, celebrations and the feeling that the owner was part of the room rather than hidden behind the kitchen door.
The chef retires, but the station remains
The closing was not presented as a sudden financial collapse. Shafer said plainly that he needed a rest and was ready for retirement. A parking-lot sale followed the final service, giving regulars a chance to take home memorabilia from a restaurant that had occupied the historic station since the early 1990s.
The depot building remains standing in Old Torrance, but The Depot restaurant is now gone. After nearly 35 years, Shafer leaves behind a rare combination: a chef-driven neighborhood institution, a room full of family milestones and a restaurant that gave one of Torrance’s oldest buildings an everyday public life.
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