Small World Big Kitchen

—The 1930's era diner doesn't seem to have changed much; from the outside, the two ancient Coca Cola medallions still frame the sign and the curtains in the front window recall a Norman Rockwell feeling to the Big Kitchen. But the little diner at 3003 Grape Street in Golden Hill has been the epicenter of a one-woman social phenomenon for nearly thirty years.

Judy Forman took over the site shortly after arriving in San Diego in the late seventies. Her foray into food was a new step; her background was in social work in the midwest and as she recalled, she didn't know shorthand when she began waiting her own tables.

That kind of beginning didn't seem to be a handicap in the Golden Hill of the early '80's. The neighborhood was rougher and looser then; with gangs lurking in the east end of nearby Balboa Park even as the neighborhood slowly gentrified from a tumbledown suburb into the rebuilt and renewed place it is now. The people who became the Big Kitchen's regulars appreciated the generous portions of simple food and and reasonable prices and the caf‚ soon became a hub for many locals to meet and get acquainted. It wasn't long before lines ran out the door for breakfast on weekends, and Judy found herself pressed for space.

Perhaps the need to maximize the seating of the restaurant helped start a rich and long lasting pattern of activism that has endured for nearly three decades and embraces a wide variety of causes and subjects; in order to open a small back area for tables, Judy had to negotiate with several layers of city bureaucracy and hone her impressive listening and speaking skills. She got the tables---and eventually added a next-door annex.

She also soon began to realize that many of her customers needed more than a good meal from time to time, especially if they were on the downturn of the economic wheel. Golden Hill was once full of people who were starting out, starting over, in recovery and just trying to get by; some of them had their hands full with the effort and had few resources or help to work with.

Over time, Judy began to develop and maximize the resources of the Big Kitchen to fill some gaps. When some people needed a job, Judy found them one, either in the Big Kitchen or as time went on, in the ever better networked community surrounding the cafe. Many Golden Hill youth who may have otherwise found a dead end in a gang got started in the Kitchen, peeling potatoes or washing spinach instead. Their efforts fed people who weren't turned away regardless of their ability to pay. One of those who found work there was Whoopi Goldberg, who lived nearby in the early eighties and spent time at the Kitchen while preparing her material that launched her career.

Judy Forman's and the Big Kitchen's effects on politics, social activism and the broader community have been all out of proportion to the actual size of the space and numbers of people that Judy can command at any given time. Fortunately, Judy Forman has been a one-woman powerhouse for three decades. Candidates running for city council, congress and state office have found it wise to press the flesh at the Big Kitchen and people looking for resources for their own activism have long known that knowing Judy can be worth years of burning shoe leather and clerk time when establishing everything from street cred to social networks.

Judy the Beauty is an important person to know in this town for a lot of good reasons. For nearly thirty years Judy the Beauty on Duty has mentored and cared for legions of people who have paid her back with their art, regard and referrals to the a one-of-a-kind restaurant that shouldn't be missed when one is in San Diego.

One of the reasons why it shouldn't be missed is because one never knows what may be going on there. Over the years, the Big Kitchen has operated as a theatre, with performers staging plays behind the counter as the audience watched from the booths, or as a fundraising hall where staged dinners have raised money for many social, art, educational or cultural groups, or as a site for parties for everything from anniversaries, quinceaneras, birthdays or whatnot.

Political candidates have addressed throngs of voters there and the Big Kitchen has gained national acclaim for its efforts on behalf of abused women, gay youth, elders in need many others who can't wait for the powers that be to work out bipartisan deals on behalf of the voters.

Two stories stick out in our minds; one involves an African exchange student who once mentioned that his corner of Kenya needed drilling equipment to reach groundwater that could be used to irrigate the surface topsoil and provide food for his people. The Big Kitchen and its regulars took it upon themselves to find out just what kind of drill would be needed and raised funds to acquire the equipment and send it to Kenya. This involved a legion of fundraising dinners, theatre evenings and benefits that raised the money later spent on hardware and shipping. Eventually, Judy received word that a significant amount of acrage half a world away was under cultivation and feeding people. The drill begat another effort to acquire a water pump--and that effort paid off directly even though time and money consuming issues concerning export licenses, duties and labels on shipping crates were quietly overlooked or perhaps forgotten..

Another memorable effort failed; it concerned two men who met at the Big Kitchen one day while waiting for breakfast and who got into a discussion about ridding the world of landmines. One of the men had an idea for a cheap and simple machine that would do the job---the other man had a machine shop and was skilled in making prototypes out of sketches on the backs of envelopes. From this initial meeting, a prototype landmine destroyer was built that impressed Marine and Navy officers who saw it in experimental action.

The "Armadillo" as it was known, met its untimely end from Duke Cunningham---the disgraced former Congressman who demanded the inventors pay him thousands for a bribe before he would bring it to the attention of the military procurement committee in Congress which the venal Republican chaired. The inventors had spent their money on the Armadillo and had nothing left for Cunningham's wallet; besides, they had no desire to enrich a malfeasant criminal and there the matter stalled. When last seen, the Armadillo languished under a tarp in a corner of the machine shop where it was built.

In 2005, Judy Forman was named a State of California Woman of the Year and on June 29, the city proclaimed that day as Judy the Beauty Forman Day. The restaurant still serves its stellar breakfasts-its pancakes, coffee cake and signature omellettes aren't to be missed. The social networks that have given perhaps thousands of people opportunities and possibilities they may not have otherwise had, continue on as they have for nearly thirty years due to the remarkable will, courage, intellect and spirit of Judy Forman, aka Judy the Beauty on Duty.