The tiny Richfield service station was ahead of its time when it was built on Foothill Boulevard in Cucamonga in 1915. Gasoline-powered automobiles were just catching on. Foothill wouldn’t become Route 66 for another 11 years.

In the early 1970s, after freeways siphoned away traffic and rendered Route 66 obsolete, the Cucamonga Service Station closed.

Improbably, the vacant building survived into the 21st century despite being left to rot. And just by hanging on until tastes changed and Route 66 nostalgia took hold, the service station was able to make a U-turn.

Volunteers, many of them car enthusiasts, banded together to restore the Spanish Revival structure after Rancho Cucamonga leaders gave it protected status.

In 2015, a century after its construction, the building reopened as the

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