Rita’s Special was a spin on Gay 90s’ signature pizza, also called Gay 90s. “The gentleman who was (character) Norm (Peterson) was a regular customer of ours,” she said.Īnother regular, a woman named Rita who worked at TRW in San Bernardino, had a pizza named after her, Claudia De Roos said. The brothers, who were regulars as students, came to the restaurant in a limousine after giving a commencement speech at UR in the mid 1990s, Claudia said. Gay 90s’ biggest claim to fame was as the inspiration for the television show “Cheers,” created by brothers Les and Glen Charles, who graduated from UR in 19.
“It was gorgeous,” said Claudia De Roos, who lives in Banning and graduated from Redlands High School in 1971. After that, it was in Mentone for about two years.īesides the food and college atmosphere, everyone loved the mural painted by Mimi Silvercrup. The restaurant was on Colton Avenue near Alabama Street before the De Rooses moved it to where Jersey’s Pizza is on Orange Street in the early 1990s. Gus and Claudia De Roos bought the restaurant in 1973 and drew many local students with gourmet pizza, grinders, salads with made-from-scratch dressing and $3 pitchers of beer. REDLANDS – Gay 90s was a mainstay for University of Redlands students and other locals for more than 30 years.
