Lost Tables: The Magic Pan

The Magic Pan

Leslie and Paulette Fono came to the United States from Budapest in 1956, settling in Denver. When they entertained, Paulette would make palacsintas, the Hungarian equivalent of crepes, using many of her mother's recipes.

"It was our friends who became enthusiastic about the filled pancakes and who encouraged us to open a restaurant and serve some of our specialties," Leslie recalled.

In 1966, the Fonos moved to San Francisco and opened a small restaurant at 3221 Fillmore, near Lombard Street. It seated 24 people and was decorated "just like home in Hungary."

Paulette made the fillings and Leslie made the crepes. And to make crepes efficiently, Leslie came up with an invention which gave the restaurant its name – The Magic Pan.

The device was a large iron wheel which held eight crepe pans. The pans rotated over gas flames, which heated them from below. When the pans were hot, they were greased on the bottom, dipped into crepe batter and placed upside down on the wheel. After a pan made a complete circuit, the crepe was lifted carefully from its bottom and placed atop a stack in the middle of the table.

Crepes were made in full view of diners by a "chef" in a dirndl outfit. One perfectly cooked crepe could be made every minute.

The Magic Pan crepe carousel

A short article in the April 16, 1966 San Francisco Examiner gave the new creperie a favorable review.

The Magic Pan, at 3221 Fillmore, is not a goulash place. All entrees and desserts here are versions – meat or sweet – of the palacsinta, a kind of blintz or crepe. Richly succulent, two meat palacsintas are about as much as you can take – and prices start at $1.15 for two, stop at $1.85. What's more, these goodies are exceptionally low-calorie, and the place has become a favorite of diet-watchers who like to eat. (Is there any other kind?) Excellent California wines. Most desserts are 65 cents and soup is 45 cents the cup. Small, different, thoroughly pleasant.

The original Magic Pan menu offered crab crepes, spinach crepes, mushroom crepes, cheese crepes and lobster crepes. The starter was a goulash soup and salad. Desert was strawberry crepes with chocolate sauce.

The Fonos' creperie was so successful that a year later a second Magic Pan opened at Ghirardelli Square, the onetime chocolate factory turned complex of shops and restaurants. And then in January of 1969 it was announced that the Fonos had sold their restaurants to the Quaker Oats Company, which planned to expand the concept throughout the country. Leslie and Paulette Fono became president and vice president of Magic Pan, Inc.

Paulette and Leslie Fono, Denver Post, Mar 31, 1971


The Magic Pan Menu, early 1970s (click image to enlarge)

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In January of 1972, the Frontenac Board of Alderman voted to rezone a 68-acre tract of land at the southwest corner of Clayton and Lindbergh, paving the way for the development of a 30-acre "high-fashion" shopping center. The center would consist of two "anchor" stores connected by a two-level mall with small specialty shops.

Plaza Frontenac opened in the fall of 1973 with Saks Fifth Avenue's ribbon cutting ceremony on November 3. Saks was located at the north end of the mall, at #1 Plaza Frontenac. On November 25, 1974, The Magic Pan opened next door at #2.


St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug 19, 1975 (click image to enlarge)

The Magic Pan, #2 Plaza Frontenac

The St. Louis Magic Pan was an instant success. In the February 5, 1975 St. Louis Post-Dispatch food critic Joe Pollack gave the creperie a rave review.

A recent, and sparkling bright, addition to the St. Louis luncheon, dining and late-evening scene, The Magic Pan is located in the new Plaza Frontenac shopping center at Lindbergh Boulevard and Clayton Road. It is a branch of an operation that began in San Francisco and has spread to other cities, and there seems to be a strong and admirable thread of consistency running through the chain.
The menu is based on crepes, a thin, light pancake that is rolled, then stuffed and covered with a wide variety of fillings and sauces.
The ones at the Pan may not match the quality of real hand-made crepes at a great French restaurant, but they still are good.
Crepes for dinner, followed by crepes for dessert, may seem rather redundant; but the Pan has sufficient imagination to make the combination delightful, and also rich and filling.
The crepes are prepared in the dining room on a device called, of course, a Magic Pan, and it's almost as fun to watch them being made as it is to devour them.

The Magic Pan, Plaza Frontenac
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan 21, 1979

There were many favorite dishes on the the Magic Pan menu. One was the Potage St. Germain, or French country pea soup. It was served with a dollop of sour cream and a splash of sherry. The sherry was served on the side in a tiny glass pitcher, while the sour cream was placed in the bowl and dusted with chopped parsley.

The Magic Pan's Potage St. Germain

The Magic Pan also gained a following for their salads, including their Orange Almond Salad, which was first developed by their food service director for her own use at home, then adapted for use at the creperies.

Joe Pollack liked the Magic Pan's Fresh Spinach Salad.

Fresh, raw spinach, which I much prefer to the cooked variety, was another splendid selection. The vegetable was crisp and beautiful, the bacon and egg fragments added a very nice flavor and the sweet-and-sour dressing was a superb complement to the whole thing. The only problem was the size of the serving. The bowl was filled to overflowing, and even though the companion labored as hard as she could and I pitched in a little, we could not finish.

The Magic Pan's Fresh Spinach Salad

The Magic Pan offered a number of entree crepes, including meat, chicken, fish and vegetable varieties. Joe Pollack catalogued them in his review, along with their 1975 prices.

Fillings are beef Bourguignon with wine sauce ($4.25), beef and mushrooms with cheese ($4.10), creamed chicken ($3.95), curried chicken with apple and coconut on top ($4.30), scallops, shrimp and mushrooms in a cheese sauce ($4.30), tiny shrimp in wine sauce ($4.20), fresh mushrooms ($3.30), spinach soufflé ($2.80), crab-meat ($5.25) and ratatouille with a mixture of vegetables including zucchini, tomatoes and eggplant ($3.30).
Two crepes make up an order, and an experimental diner can mix and match any combination to please either the palate or the imagination.
Two crepes with a filling may not sound like a lot to eat, but it's plenty, even for the hearty appetite.

The Magic Pan's Spinach Soufflé Crepes

And then there was dessert.

Ice cream is featured in the crepe a la mode, with bittersweet chocolate shavings ($1.75), the cherries jubilee crepe, which is not flamed but is covered with hot brandied cherries ($1.75) and the mocha crepe, with mocha sauce garnished with whipped mocha cream and that good old bittersweet chocolate ($1.75).
Whipped cream is the thing in the Chantilly, with brown sugar-steeped bananas in the cream ($1.75) or the orange delight, with slices of orange in the orange whipped cream and some more chocolate ($1.65).
And there are the apple sizzle, with spiced apples, cinnamon sugar and toasted pecans ($1.45, or $1.75 with ice cream); a cheese blintz, with a sour cream and strawberry topping ($1.45); a strawberry and either sour cream or whipped cream and brown sugar ($1.85), only when fresh strawberries are available; and a pecan mix in the fried crepe ($1.35).
The piece de resistance is crepes beignet, a crisped crepe, dusted with powdered sugar and served in a basket. It comes piping hot, with a dish of either brandied apricot sauce or brandied chocolate sauce for dipping. Both sauces are good but the chocolate is exceptional.

The Magic Pan's Strawberry Crepes Supreme

On October 31, 1978, a second St. Louis Magic Pan opened at Northwest Plaza. and about a year later, a third opened at Crestwood Plaza.

The Crestwood Plaza Magic Pan experimented with an expanded menu, adding such items as London broil, hamburgers and other sandwiches, quiches and French fries to its list of crepes.

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The Magic Pan helped pioneer the sit-down restaurant in the shopping mall, adding a more formal option to snacks and food courts. As the mall industry grew, so did The Magic Pan – to over 100 units in the 1970s.

But in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Magic Pan faced competition from a host of other sit-down contenders, plus their average check couldn't keep up with escalating mall rents.

By the end of 1992, the last St. Louis Magic Pan closed at Plaza Frontenac. The space sat empty until 1995, when Canyon Cafe opened for business.

Canyon Cafe, #2 Plaza Frontenac