IN THE PIPELINE:

A little boy blows out a blue candle that’s sticking out of a freshly baked cinnamon bun. The parents didn’t ask for that, but when the server heard it was the boy’s very first birthday, well, she just thought that was the proper thing to do.

At a large table in the middle of the room, a group of girlfriends who look like they’ve know each other 50-plus years are having a raucous time, a dozen conversations overlapping at once.

Mary Beth Gustafson, “Baker Extraordinaire” as her card says, is in the kitchen with her 21-year-old daughter, Kerstin, baking more of her legendary, mouth-watering cinnamon rolls from scratch, just like they’ve always been made. It seems pretty much everything at Alice’s Breakfast in the Park restaurant is made in a way that would cause any old-fashioned grandma to rejoice — made from scratch and with love.

Inside the small dining room, famously cluttered with charming bits of Americana, Alice Gustafson, 77, shares a table with me and her friend of some 36 years, Mary Kay McCauley.

Amid the dolls, bird cages, fans, framed paintings, strung plastic lights and more, she’s fretting a bit over a cup of strong coffee. As you may have heard, the Alice’s in the Park era is now like a sun setting on the horizon here at the quiet end of the park by the lake. She told me her rent is being doubled and the city has bigger designs for the magical little place she’s run since the early 1980s.

Ironically, it was the city back then that asked Alice and husband, John, based on their successful End Café at the edge of the pier, to actually open an establishment in the park.

“Back when they did business with a handshake,” Alice says. “When your word was law,” adds Mary Kay.

But today, things have changed. City officials have stated that they find the property “underutilized” and would prefer to have a “café/bistro” in the park where alcohol could be served to up the checks. As Dana Parsons recounted recently in the Los Angeles Times, Alice “pays ‘rent’ to the city as part of a sliding tax on her sales. The increase the city wants, she says, would double her monthly payment.” And she just can’t afford that. Our breakfast comes a moment later, and it’s as good as always. Freshly baked bread, perfect eggs and perhaps the best sausage I’ll ever eat.

How things reached this nadir varies somewhat depending on which side you’re talking to. Alice’s son, John, told me that if you broke it down, his mom works for about 10 cents an hour. But that’s OK because he also says it never was about the money — it’s just been about the people.

He also says they did what they were supposed to in their deal with the city, and at this point he thinks they just want the site to generate more money.

“I wish she could simply run the restaurant to the public’s benefit until Labor Day, 2010,” he says. “Then she could retire, and let the place go. That’s all she wants.”

But Huntington Beach Director of Economic Development Stanley Smalewitz told me that too much additional deterioration would be incurred in that time (Alice says she’s kept up with whatever the city has asked for up until now).

Plus, proposals for the “bistro” are already being reviewed by the city, so it’s too late.

“Bistro?” Mary Kay asks in disgust. “In this neighborhood? Drinking at a nighttime establishment in Central Park … bistro?”

At the counter, a petition to save Alice’s started by a customer, Richard Reinbolt, boasts hundreds of signatures with more being added each hour. For years he and his friend, Guila, let their pooch, Amber, chase ducks by Alice’s (Amber passed away in August). He told me he started the petition because of how much he loves not just the place, but what the place stands for.

Part of the petition reads: “Alice’s restaurant is a warm, wholesome, 28-year-old INSTITUTION, beloved and patronized by a large number of families and children from many locales for many years. Such an institution, characterized by its charming lakefront and quacking and honking residents needs to be regards as SACRED to City Values and, therefore, free from being victimized by City Revenue Exploitation and promise of a glossy Bistro restaurant.”

I am not really objective about this. I believe that cities are made more valuable by places like Alice’s (I have out-of-town relatives who want to go there first thing when they visit). Places where children grow up, where old friends catch up and where time slows down to a nice peaceful pace have all but been vanquished from this city, and many others.

This represents a loss of more than just restaurant — it’s the death of another bit of decency, uniqueness and community. Money runs a city, yes. But I believe some things have a value that transcends mere dollars and cents. Some places, like Alice’s, are strong threads in a community’s fabric, and measuring its value in strict financial terms seems shortsighted. There are bigger things at stake.

Will the neighborhood welcome a public park “bistro” that stays open late, builds traffic and serves booze? I don’t know. Will the city make a lot more money on the site once it is done being “underutilized?” I don’t care. Will people miss Alice’s and feel like they’ve lost a part of their family once it’s gone? I don’t doubt it. Not for one second.

Several weeks ago the Independent got together with readers and had a roundtable to discuss issues and ideas. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same with In The Pipeline readers, so if you’re interested in getting together to talk local issues, history, or anything else that might make this column better, drop me an e-mail and we’ll coordinate something (I’m thinking coffee at Alice’s).

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at [email protected].