Formerly: Philippe's
Los Angeles, California · Founded 1908
A still-family-operated Los Angeles sandwich institution founded in 1908 and central to the unresolved French-dip origin dispute.
Philippe the Original traces its beginnings to 1908, when Philippe Mathieu opened a restaurant in Los Angeles's old Frenchtown. The business changed hands to the Martin family in 1927 and moved to its present 1001 N. Alameda Street site in 1951 after freeway construction displaced it from Aliso Street. It remains a family-operated downtown landmark and Cole's longtime rival in the unresolved argument over who invented the French dip.
French immigrant Philippe Mathieu opens his first Philippe restaurant at 300 N. Alameda in Los Angeles's Frenchtown, serving roast meats along with items such as pâté and blood sausage.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008.
Mathieu and his brother Arbin open the New Poodle Dog French Restaurant on North Spring Street. Los Angeles Times reporting says the more formal venture lasted about two years before they returned to an inexpensive restaurant format.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008.
Mathieu moves the restaurant to 246 Aliso Street. Later accounts associate this period with the development of the dipped sandwich, but the surviving origin stories do not establish an exact invention date.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008.
After repeated rent increases, Mathieu buys property at 364 Aliso Street for the restaurant.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008.
Historical reporting says Mathieu briefly sells the restaurant to a lawyer, buys it back after a few months, and then sells it to David and Harry Martin. PBS family testimony also identifies Harry, Dave and Frank Martin as the purchasing brothers, leaving the exact transaction and participant details worth further archival verification.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; PBS SoCal, 'Philippe's Update,' April 5, 2011.
The Martin family begins an era of ownership and operation that later includes the Binder family through marriage.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; PBS SoCal, 'Philippe's Update,' April 5, 2011.
Freeway construction displaces Philippe's from Aliso Street. The restaurant moves to 1001 N. Alameda Street, a former machine shop with a hotel above it. Philippe's own history says it closed its doors on Aliso Street before the move; the duration of any interruption remains unresolved.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; Philippe the Original, 'About Us.'
PBS SoCal's Huell Howser program features owners John and Bill Binder and documents the restaurant's Martin/Binder family stewardship.
Source: PBS SoCal, 'Philippe's Update,' April 5, 2011.
A Los Angeles profile identifies Andrew Binder, Julia Tauscher and Mark Massengill as fourth-generation family members operating Philippe's.
Source: VoyageLA, 'Meet Andrew Binder of Philippe the Original,' February 15, 2023.
Philippe's remains in operation at 1001 N. Alameda Street. Its official site advertises daily breakfast and current restaurant service, while NBC Los Angeles reports on a 2026 operational change involving the restaurant's traditional sawdust flooring.
Source: Philippe the Original, 'About Us'; NBC Los Angeles, March 25, 2026.
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
Philippe's has a long and well-supported operating lineage from 1908 to the present, but uninterrupted operation is not established. The 1927 lawyer interlude lacks operational detail, and Philippe's own history says the restaurant closed its doors on Aliso Street before the 1951 move. No source in this audit establishes whether service stopped, or for how long, during either transition.
Philippe Mathieu gave the Los Angeles Times a firsthand retrospective account in 1951: a customer asked him to dip a French roll into gravy, after which other customers requested the same treatment. That testimony is stronger than later retellings, but it is not a contemporaneous invention record and it conflicts with family stories involving an accidental dropped roll or a stale roll. Cole's also maintains a competing origin story, so this register does not name a winner.
Cole's maintained a competing 1908 story in which bread was dipped in gravy for a customer who had trouble chewing. The Los Angeles Times treated the Cole's and Philippe's accounts as a controversy with no evidence sufficient to settle it. This entry records the claim as rival lore, not as fact.
Los Angeles Times historical reporting states that Philippe Mathieu opened his first Philippe restaurant at 300 N. Alameda in 1908. The present restaurant is the successor operation, though it has moved locations and changed family ownership since then.
Los Angeles Times reporting and PBS family testimony support Martin-family acquisition in 1927 and a long Martin/Binder family operating lineage. The claim is historically strong, but this audit did not inspect corporate filings, deeds, or transaction documents establishing every legal ownership change and present ownership share.
Philippe's is among Los Angeles's oldest operating restaurants, but the available record does not prove uninterrupted operation from 1908. The 1927 transition and 1951 relocation both leave unresolved questions about service interruptions. Cole's 2007–08 closure and its 2026 shutdown do not themselves establish Philippe's continuous-operation title.
Current official material describes Philippe's as family owned, and a 2023 Los Angeles profile identifies Andrew Binder, Julia Tauscher and Mark Massengill as fourth-generation family members operating the business.
Philippe Mathieu accidentally dropped a French roll into roasting-pan drippings, inventing the French dip.
In a 1951 Los Angeles Times interview quoted by later reporting, Mathieu said a customer asked him to dip a French roll in gravy and that others then requested the same. Later family versions include a stale-roll story and an accidental-drop story, so the famous accident narrative is not the earliest documented telling.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; Thrillist, 'Who ACTUALLY Invented the French Dip? We Got to the Bottom of It.'
Philippe's has operated continuously since 1908.
Philippe's has a documented lineage from 1908 to the present, but this audit could not establish uninterrupted service. The 1927 lawyer interlude is thinly documented, and Philippe's own history says it closed its Aliso Street doors before the 1951 relocation.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; Philippe the Original, 'About Us.'
Philippe's is definitively Los Angeles's longest continuously operating restaurant.
Philippe's is one of Los Angeles's oldest operating restaurants, but the available evidence does not prove unbroken operation across the 1927 ownership change and 1951 relocation.
Source: Los Angeles Times, 'The Big Dipper,' April 6, 2008; Philippe the Original, 'About Us.'
Philippe's survived by preserving a recognizable service model while remaining a working family business: a long counter staffed by carvers, communal seating, dipped sandwiches, house mustard, sawdust-floor tradition and a menu designed for fast, high-volume service. The Martin and Binder families have carried the operation across generations and through a forced 1951 relocation. Its endurance rests less on a claim that nothing changed than on a consistent identity customers could return to.
Philippe the Original began in Los Angeles in 1908, when Philippe Mathieu opened his first restaurant at 300 N. Alameda. The business passed to the Martin family in 1927, later became a Martin/Binder family operation, and moved to 1001 N. Alameda in 1951 when freeway construction displaced it from Aliso Street. Philippe's remains open there today, but the record does not establish uninterrupted service across every ownership and relocation transition.
Philippe's is one of Los Angeles's oldest operating restaurants, with a lineage beginning in 1908. It does not have a verified claim to be the city's longest continuously operating restaurant because the available sources leave unresolved whether service stopped during the 1927 ownership transition and the 1951 move. Cole's, its longtime 1908 rival, closed in 2026 after a documented 2007–08 closure of its own.
No evidence reviewed for this entry establishes Philippe's as California's oldest restaurant. Philippe's dates to 1908 and is a major Los Angeles institution, but California has older hospitality businesses and no statewide oldest-restaurant title is asserted here.
The evidence does not settle the dispute. Philippe Mathieu told the Los Angeles Times in 1951 that a customer asked him to dip a French roll in gravy, while Cole's maintained a separate 1908 story involving softened bread for a customer with sore gums. Neither side has a contemporaneous record proving invention, so this register rates Philippe's claim plausible and Cole's claim unverifiable rather than declaring a winner.
Philippe's presents itself as the original home of the French-dipped sandwich and uses the name Philippe the Original in that long-running claim of primacy. The exact date and business reason that the word Original was added to the name were not established in the sources reviewed for this entry.
Yes. Los Angeles Times historical reporting traces Philippe's from its 1908 opening at 300 N. Alameda through several locations in old Frenchtown, including 246 and 364 Aliso Street. In 1951, freeway construction forced the move to 1001 N. Alameda Street, where the restaurant still operates.
1001 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 628-3781
Counter-service restaurant with a long-carver format and communal seating. Its official site lists daily breakfast from 6:00 to 10:30 a.m.; confirm current payment methods and daily hours directly before visiting.