10/01/2026
100 YEARS OF ROUTE 66
As you enter Victorville on old Route 66, Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Café. It is the archetypal roadside restaurant of Route 66.
It is an important landmark because it represents the people, working travelers, family businesses, and everyday meals that made the Mother Road what it was.
Located at 17143 North D Street, it was inaugurated in 1947, by Bob and Kate Holland opened Holland Burger Café.
The Hollands constructed it from cinder blocks made at the old fiber-tile plant south of Victorville, near where the Cemex plant is today.
Places like Holland Burger were essence of the Route 66 experience.
It wasn’t a fancy designed for tourists restaurant - it was a working roadside café serving truck drivers, local residents and travelers crossing the High Desert.
The National Park Service’s Route 66 identifies Emma Jean’s as being representative of the small, independently owned cafés that developed along Route 66.
For 31 years, Richard Gentry operated a cement-truck along Route 66 and had been eating at Holland Burger since it opened. His wife, Emma Jean, worked there as a waitress.
In 1979, Richard purchased the café for Emma Jean and renamed it Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Café. The name reflects Route 66 through the lens of a workingman's life and a family story.
Emma Jean died in 1996, and Richard died in 2008.
Nevertheless, the restaurant tradition continues through their son Brian Gentry and his wife Shawna who help preserve not just the building but the atmosphere and food traditions associated with this old Route 66 stop.
For those interested in pop culture, Emma Jean’s appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
California’s official tourism material highlights Emma Jean’s as a Route 66 stop worth visiting.
Another important piece of the story is an historical monument erected in 2011 by the Billy Holcomb Chapter No. 1069 of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus.
The Clampers are a fraternal organization that preserves and commemorates the history of the American Southwest.
I was there. It was my first “Doin’s.”
