• DINING • Altadena Ale: The key to Pasadena’s pub culture By Frier McCollister Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer
2329 N. Fair Oaks Avenue, Altadena 626-794-4577, altadenaalehouse.com Club 1881 1881 E. Washington Boulevard, Pasadena 626-314-2077
8 PASADENA WEEKLY | 06.03.21
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6/1/21 3:02 PM
Photos by Luis Chavez
Altadena Ale & Wine House
Photo by Luis Chavez
J
udah Casburn whips around the Arroyo in a 1966 MGB Roadster convertible. He, his wife, Gail, and their two sons, Gareth, 31, and Owen, 29, own and operate the Altadena Ale & Wine House on North Fair Oaks in Altadena. The beloved 11-year-old consummate neighborhood joint is unpretentious and reasonably priced. The Altadena Ale & Wine House has been slowly creeping back to life, thanks to its stalwart, loyal regulars. As pandemic restrictions continue to lift, fully vaccinated patrons have returned to the pub with renewed confidence and a thirst for conviviality and craft beer. However, it’s not commonly known that the Casburn family’s holdings extend farther east to Washington Boulevard in Pasadena. The Casburns have operated Club 1881, the tiny jazz haunt next to Stater Bros. Market, since 2017. Previously, the Casburns were the original owners of Lucky Baldwin’s Pub, the iconic watering hole on Raymond Avenue in Old Town. If there was an establishment that defined the easy sway of social life in Old Town Pasadena for years before the pandemic, it’s Lucky Baldwin’s. With its warren of rooms and stairs, its authentic menu of English pub favorites and live TV broadcasts of international soccer matches, Lucky Baldwin’s has always defined pub culture in Pasadena. It all started in 1991 on Union Street and Arroyo Parkway at the site of another local institution: King Taco. “We talked for an hour, struck a deal and bought it,” Judah said over a Guinness. The spot was already named Lucky Baldwin’s but was operating as a lunchtime sandwich shop. “It was a busy place. They had a beer and wine license and we opened it up as a pub,” Judah recalled. After moving the pub to its current location on Raymond in 1995, the Casburns sold the operation in 1997 to one of their bartenders, the late David Farnworth. First, however, they instituted a robust and eclectic line of draft beer, as well as World Cup soccer screenings. “We were the first to sell Belgian beer (and) the first to sell local craft beer,” Judah said. “We went out of our way to get it.” The family also carved a niche by broadcasting the 1994 World Cup soccer matches. “Nobody except the English people knew. It was so much fun,” Judah remarked. Judah was born and raised in Yorkshire, England, and worked as a lead bartender for the National Jazz Federation and at the Marquee Club in London before emigrating to Southern California in September 1978. Appropriately, Judah met Gail at an Old Town pub. “We met years before we even started dating at the old Loch Ness, now called the Old Town Pub,” Gail said. “Then we just started hanging out.” The couple married on St. Patrick’s Day, 1988. They saved their money to buy Lucky Baldwin’s, partnered in a peculiar enterprise. “We used to sell containers full of vintage British sports cars,” Gail revealed. Collectors take note: “We still have a lot of cars: XKs, MGs, Triumphs. We
