"As of September 30th, the Depot will be closing its doors for the last meal." Chef Michael Shafer posted that line in a farewell on The Depot's website. He wrote it in the middle of his 35th year at 1250 Cabrillo Avenue. The same note recalls birthdays, anniversaries and memorials in the dining room
Richard Foss gave the closing a short entry in his October 7 column for Easy Reader: "An era of fine dining in Old Town Torrance comes to an end." He added that Shafer "knew an astonishing number of his patrons by name."
Downtown has lost a restaurant. The Depot was the second life of a 1912 railway station, and that station already sat through one long stretch with no clear purpose before a restaurant moved in. Its story says more about what comes next on Cabrillo Avenue than any tenant rumor can.
A Station Before It Was a Dining Room
The building exists because of a land deal. In 1911, Torrance agreed to donate a 125-acre site to the Pacific Electric Railway for its railcar construction and repair shops, and Pacific Electric agreed to build a Red Car line into town. That account comes from a 2010 South Bay History post on Torrance's depot, which draws on Daily Breeze reporting and local histories. Architect Irving Gill designed the depot. It was finished in 1912 with a gold dome and an outdoor cigar stand.
The table below lays out the building's timeline. The long gap in the middle is the point.
| Year | What happened at 1250 Cabrillo |
|---|---|
| 1912 | Gill's depot opens for Red Car passengers on the Torrance spur from the Gardena line |
| 1917 | Pacific Electric's maintenance yards are finished, and a "shop train" carries workers from the depot to the yards |
| 1940s | Red Car service to the South Bay fades and the building is used for storage |
| 1977 | A Daily Breeze photo shows the depot unoccupied |
| 1978 | Southern Pacific, then the owner, turns down a bid to make the building a restaurant |
| Feb. 4, 1986 | Southern Pacific signs a deal to sell to local developers Capellino and Associates, who restore the building |
| Oct. 1991 | The Depot opens with Michael Shafer as chef |
| Dec. 19, 1997 | A fire destroys the kitchen, and the restaurant carries on |
| 2026 | Shafer's farewell sets the last meal for Sept. 30, and Easy Reader reports the closure on Oct. 7 |
From the fading of the Red Cars in the 1940s to the 1986 sale agreement, about four decades passed with the building in storage or empty. By the 2010 account, efforts to preserve it as a historical landmark had failed and the structure had fallen into disrepair. Several buyers showed interest before the sale went through. One was Annie Zaharis of Tommy's Coffee Shop. In 1978 Southern Pacific denied her plan to turn the depot into a restaurant, and she opened in Carson in 1981 instead.
The restaurant use did not arrive on its own. After restoring the building, Capellino and Associates brought in Robert Bell and Michael Franks, the restaurateurs behind Chez Melange, to open a restaurant there. Someone had to want it. That was true in 1986, and it is true again now.
The Mix-Up on Sartori Avenue
A building this closely tied to the Red Car story invites confusion, and the confusion has a clear source. Red Car Brewery & Restaurant at 1266 Sartori Avenue sits nearby and carries the trolley name. Bob and Laurie Brandt opened it in 2000 in a building that housed a Pacific Telephone and Telegraph office from 1928 to 1953. It was never the depot site. The brewery dates its own opening to August 2000.
The difference matters this fall. The Red Car name is still on an active downtown business. The actual Red Car station on Cabrillo is the one with no announced future.
Who Keeps the Evening Hours Downtown
The Depot's absence is easiest to see in the clock. Downtown businesses were in full swing on October 3, when the Downtown Torrance Association ran its annual Scaredown in Downtown. Discover Torrance's event listing describes the DTA as a volunteer-run nonprofit of business owners. The listing named Pumpkin Ale at Red Car Brewery, Ghost Nachos at Local Kitchen, and Boogie Bomb Shots at Keegan's Sports Lounge & Grill, and said Torrance Bakery would stay open until 7 p.m. that night.
That event confirms those kitchens are operating. It does not confirm their regular hours. For the downtown spots that post current hours on their own sites, the schedule looks like this.
| Spot | Address | Hours posted by the business |
|---|---|---|
| Madre | 1261 Cabrillo Ave. #100 | Mon–Thu 11 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri 11 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sat 9 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sun 9 a.m.–10 p.m. |
| Clutch and Coffee | 1321 El Prado Ave. | Closed Mon; Tue–Fri 8 a.m.–2 p.m.; Sat–Sun 7 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| OffSet Coffee | 1413 Marcelina Ave. | Online ordering 7 a.m.–3:45 p.m. |
Madre serves Oaxacan cooking and mezcal right on Cabrillo, a few doors from the depot. Of the downtown sit-down kitchens that publish current hours, it is the one that posts dinner service every night of the week. Clutch and Coffee is a breakfast café that closes at 2 p.m. Its own site lists those hours, while a February 2026 Discover Torrance listing shows a longer daily schedule, so the business's site is the safer guide. OffSet Coffee on Marcelina is offering a fall menu with a pumpkin spice latte.
Taken together, the places with published hours put much of downtown's food on a morning-and-afternoon schedule. Madre covers the evenings, along with the pub and brewery kitchens that were serving at Scaredown. The Depot was the fine-dining room on Cabrillo, in Foss's words, and the place where families marked birthdays and anniversaries, as Shafer's farewell describes. No 2026 source names another downtown opening that fills that role.
What Is Known About 1250 Cabrillo, and What Is Not
What is confirmed is short. Shafer's farewell announced the last meal and a parking-lot sale of memorabilia, and invited guests to "raise one more glass" with the staff. The farewell does not mention a successor. Neither does Foss's Easy Reader column. No 2026 source found for this post names a new tenant, describes lease status, or reports any change to the building's historic-designation status.
One practical caution applies. Older directories and the restaurant's own site still show legacy menus and standard hours under the farewell notice. Those pages are not evidence that the dining room reopened after September 30.
The City of Torrance describes the Downtown Torrance District as the city's original commercial core, about 88.5 acres. The depot is among its oldest pieces. It began as a city's bargain with a railroad, sat as a storage shed through much of the century, and spent 35 years as a dining room under one chef. No one has publicly named its next use.
The Next Reasons to Be Downtown
Downtown's calendar keeps going while that question stays open. The City of Torrance lists the Downtown Torrance Antique Street Faire on the fourth Sunday of each month, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The remaining 2026 dates are October 25, November 22 and December 27. Madre opens at 9 a.m. on Sundays, and Clutch and Coffee opens at 7 a.m. on weekends. Both are within a few blocks of the faire, and both are a short walk from the corner of Cabrillo and Sartori where Gill's station still stands.
Questions about historic buildings like the one at 1250 Cabrillo usually take time and local memory to answer. If you own property near downtown Torrance, or you are handling an estate that includes older South Bay real estate, Mackenbach Group is glad to talk through what changes like this one mean for your plans. Request a Private Consultation.
