[photo credit: Melting Pot Food Tours]
A guided food tour that runs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is built around that disconnect: the gap between what visitors see on Old Pasadena’s main streets and what sits just behind them. The Old Pasadena Food Tasting Walking Tour, operated by Melting Pot Food Tours, covers 1.25 miles roughly 5,400 to 6,000 steps of the historic district over roughly 3.5 hours, stopping at five to six independently owned ethnic restaurants and specialty shops along the way. This year, the tour has added content marking the centennial of Route 66, the storied highway whose path runs along Colorado Boulevard.
The tour meets at 155 S. Raymond Ave., near Amara Cafe, at 10:30 a.m., according to Visit Pasadena. It loops through what the company’s website describes as “colorful alleys and secret throughways,” visiting eateries serving Venezuelan, Asian, Indian, and Mediterranean food, along with an artisan chocolate shop, a specialty bakery, and women-owned boutique stores, according to the tour page. The tastings, the company states, amount to a full meal. The route concludes back at the original starting point.
Melting Pot Food Tours was founded in 2008 by sisters Lisa and Diane Scalia, Los Angeles natives of Italian heritage who started with a Farmers Market tour at Third and Fairfax, according to the company’s Yelp page. Jody Flowers, a native of Indiana with degrees in restaurant and hotel management from Purdue University and culinary arts from Johnson & Wales University, acquired the company in early 2021, according to the company’s website. Before taking over Melting Pot, Flowers ran a catering business in Charleston, S.C., according to her company biography. The company describes itself as “locally owned” and “family-run.” In addition to the Old Pasadena tour, the company offers walking food tours of the Original Farmers Market, East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, and East Village Long Beach, according to its website.
The tour’s route through Old Pasadena doubles as a history lesson. The district, once the commercial heart of the Indiana Colony settlers who planted orange groves here beginning in 1874, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The tour page notes that Old Pasadena was “once just a sunny haven of bountiful orange groves, settled by Midwesterners from the state of Indiana.”
Visit Pasadena, the city’s tourism bureau, notes on its directory that the tour “features Pasadena’s independently owned restaurants, many of which are family-run and have been in business for decades.” The bureau adds that guests “are pleasantly surprised to also learn about the city’s history and architecture,” and describes the stops as “hidden gems that can only be found in the alleys rather than the main boulevards.”
The Route 66 centennial, which the company highlights as a special 2026 feature, coincides with the 100th anniversary of the highway’s establishment on November 11, 1926. Congress passed the Route 66 Centennial Commission Act creating a commission to recommend activities for the milestone, according to Visit Pasadena. Colorado Boulevard also marks 150 years since its origins at Fair Oaks Avenue in 1876, according to Visit Pasadena. The city and its organizations are hosting a series of centennial-themed events throughout 2026.
The company’s About Us page states it has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Sunset Magazine, CBS Evening News, KTLA Morning News, and other national and local outlets, according to the company’s website.
Tickets cost $119 for adults and $65 for children 13 and under. Sales tax is included; gratuity for the guide is not. The meeting point is one block from the Metro A Line’s Memorial Park Station, and guests who take Metro receive a $5 discount, according to Visit Pasadena. Public parking structures near the meeting point are free for the first 90 minutes, then $3 per additional hour to a $9 daily maximum. The tour validates up to two hours of parking. Translator services are available in seven languages: Japanese, Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) with advance booking. Groups larger than six and private tour requests can be arranged by calling (323) 664-4472 or emailing info@meltingpottours.com.
More information is available at meltingpottours.com.
The alleys will be there this weekend. The food will be waiting.
