Philippe the Original Turns 100: Sights, Sounds, Trivia!

Philippe's, Ruth L, Flickr

The sawdust-on-the-floor, French-dip emporium Philippe the Original turns 100 this year, and Charles Perry takes a close, detailed, historical look in this Sunday's LAT Magazine. Some fun facts:

1) The owners pronounce the name fil-LEE-pee's, but they don't insist that anybody else do so.

2) In 1908, a meal was 25 cents, and included a pint of homemade wine.

3) Only 90 of those 100 years has it been serving thesingle-, double- and even triple-dipped sandwiches. Yes, triple-dipped!

4) Been in the current location since 1957.

5) The case for Philippe's being the originator of the French dip, and not Cole's, is pretty strong. Philippe was French, after all.

6) 73 employees, unionized since 1954.

7) Serves 2,200 to 3,000 customers a day on weekdays, as many as 4,000 on weekends.
· Philippe the Original Turns 100 [LAT]