FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Some local residents are...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Some local residents are busy holding onto pieces of Orange County’s history. The Mead family, for instance, renovated a 1926 neighborhood grocery store in Orange and made it a coffeehouse and gift shop. Now, they’ve started work on turning a 104-year-old Baptist church in Old Towne into a restaurant. . . . Says Gary Mead Jr., the building “just fit the kind of food we wanted to serve”--pasta and other health-oriented dishes. He adds: “It’s an enlightened way of eating, we call it.”

GOOD NEWS: Legal disputes and the past recession have put some of downtown Fullerton’s pet rehabilitation projects--such as the old Fox Theater--on hold in recent years. At least one is finally moving forward, however. . . . The 1919 Masonic Temple building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places this month, and the owner is converting it into commercial space. . . . When it reopens, many longtime city residents will get to see the inside for the first time; the lodge was members-only until it closed about three years ago.

SCHOOL NEWS? When Garden Grove moves its city operations into a newly purchased building this fall, it plans to tear down the old City Hall, a former schoolhouse built in 1924. It’s too expensive to bring it up to code, officials say. . . . But the city’s historical society still hopes it can be saved. . . . “I just feel the city shouldn’t decide to tear it down without some sort of meeting of the citizens,” says Faire Sax, society president. Sax has a personal stake: She taught in the building from 1931 to 1938.

THIS OLD HOUSE: Public buildings aren’t the only historic structures undergoing renovation. . . . Muff’s Antiques in Orange, which stocks restoration hardware for private homes, reports that business is strong, despite recent economic hard times. . . . Owners of old homes “are remodeling instead of selling in a lot of cases,” store owner Gary Hahn says. Even owners of brand-new homes are feeling nostalgic, “equipping the whole house with old-style knobs and [door] plates.”