{"id":196421,"date":"2026-02-27T12:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196421\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T12:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:22:10","slug":"how-to-have-the-best-sunday-in-l-a-according-to-andy-richter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196421\/","title":{"rendered":"How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Andy Richter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"la-sf-Andy-Richter-blue-drop-cap-A.png\" <\/p>\n

Andy Richter has found his place. <\/p>\n

The Chicago area native previously lived in New York \u2014 where he first found fame as Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s sidekick on \u201cLate Night\u201d \u2014 before moving to Los Angeles in 2001. Three years ago, he moved to Pasadena. \u201cNow that I live here, I would not live anywhere else,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

There are some practical benefits to the city. \u201cI am such a crabby old man now, but it\u2019s like, there\u2019s parking, you can park when we have to go out,\u201d Richter says. \u201cThe notion of going to dinner in Santa Monica just feels like having nails shoved into my feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sunday <\/a> <\/p>\n

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.<\/p>\n

But he mostly appreciates that Pasadena is \u201ca very diverse town and just a beautiful town,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

For Richter, most Sundays revolve around his family. In 2023, the comedian and actor married creative executive Jennifer Herrera and adopted her young daughter, Cornelia. (He also has two children in their 20s, William and Mercy, from his previous marriage.)<\/p>\n

Additionally, he\u2019s been giving his body time to recover. Richter spent last fall training and competing on the 34th season of \u201cDancing With the Stars.\u201d And though he had no prior dancing experience, he won over the show\u2019s fan base with his kindness and dedication, making it to the competition\u2019s ninth week.<\/p>\n

He hosts the weekly show \u201cThe Three Questions\u201d<\/a> on O\u2019Brien\u2019s Team Coco podcast network and still appears in films and TV shows. \u201cI\u2019m just taking meetings and auditioning like every other late 50s white comedy guy in L.A., sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

7:30 a.m.: Early rising<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me at this advanced age to sleep much past 7:30. I have a 5 1\/2-year-old, and hopefully she\u2019ll sleep in a little bit longer so my wife and I can talk and snuggle and look at our phones at opposite ends of the bed, like everybody.<\/p>\n

Then the dogs need to be walked. I have two dogs: a 120-pound Great Pyrenees-Border Collie-German Shepherd mix, and then at the other end of the spectrum, a seven-pound poodle mix. We were a blended dog family. When my wife and I met, I had the big dog and she had a little dog. Her first dog actually has passed, but we like that dynamic. You get kind of the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

8 a.m.: Breakfast at a classic diner <\/p>\n

Then it would probably be breakfast at Shakers<\/a>, which is in South Pasadena. It\u2019s one of our favorite places. We\u2019re kind of regulars there, and my daughter loves it. It\u2019s easy with a 5-year-old, you\u2019ve got to do what they want. They\u2019re terrorists that way, especially when it comes to cuisine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lived in Pasadena for about three years now, but I have been going to Shakers for a long time because I have a database of all the best diners in the Los Angeles metropolitan area committed to memory. There\u2019s just something about the continuity of them that makes me feel like the world isn\u2019t on fire. And because of L.A.\u2019s moderate climate, the ones here stay the way they are; whereas if you get 18 feet of winter snow, you tend to wear down the diner floor, seats, everything.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s a lot of really great old places that stay the same. And then there are tragic losses. There\u2019s been some noise that Shakers is going to turn into some kind of condo development. I think that people would probably riot. They would be elderly people rioting, but they would still riot.<\/p>\n

11 a.m.: Sandy paws <\/p>\n

My in-laws live down in Long Beach, so after breakfast we might take the dogs down to Long Beach. There\u2019s this dog beach there, Rosie\u2019s Beach<\/a>. I have never seen a fight there between dogs. They\u2019re all just so happy to be out and off-leash, with an ocean and sand right there. You get a contact high from the canine joy.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

1 p.m.: Lunch in Belmont Shore<\/p>\n

That would take us to lunchtime and we\u2019ll go somewhere down there. There\u2019s this place, L\u2019Antica Pizzeria Da Michele<\/a>, in Belmont Shore. It\u2019s fantastic for some pizza with grandma and grandpa. It\u2019s originally from Naples. There\u2019s also one in Hollywood where Cafe Des Artistes used to be on that weird little side street.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

4 p.m.: Sunset at the gardens<\/p>\n

We\u2019d take grandma and grandpa home, drop the dogs off. We\u2019d go to the Huntington<\/a> and stay a couple of hours until sunset. The Japanese garden is pretty mind-blowing. You feel like you\u2019re on the set of \u201cShogun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main thing that I love about it is the changing of ecospheres as you walk through it. Living in the area, I drive by it a thousand times and then I remember, \u201cOh yeah, there\u2019s a rainforest in here. There\u2019s thick stands of bamboo forest that look like Vietnam.\u201d It\u2019s beautiful. With all three of my kids, I have spent a lot of time there.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

6:30 p.m.: Mall of America<\/p>\n

After sundown, we will go to what seems to be the only thriving mall in America \u2014 [the Shops at] Santa Anita<\/a>. We are suckers for Din Tai Fung<\/a>. My 24-year-old son, who\u2019s kind of a food snob, is like, \u201cThere\u2019s a hundred places that are better and cheaper within five minutes of there in the San Gabriel Valley.\u201d And we\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, but this is at the mall.\u201d It\u2019s really easy. Also, my wife is a vegetarian, and a lot of the more authentic places, there\u2019s pork in the air. It\u2019s really hard to find vegetarian stuff.<\/p>\n

We have a whole system with Din Tai Fung now, which is logging in on the wait list while we\u2019re still on the highway, or ordering takeout. There\u2019s plenty of places in the mall with tables, you can just sit down and have your own little feast there.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a Dave & Buster\u2019s<\/a>. If you want sensory overload, you can go in there and get a big, big booze drink while you\u2019re playing Skee-Ball with your kid.<\/p>\n

9 p.m.: Head to bed ASAP<\/p>\n

I am very lucky in that I\u2019m a very good sleeper and the few times in my life when I do experience insomnia, it\u2019s infuriating to me because I am spoiled, basically. When you\u2019ve got a 5 1\/2-year-old, there\u2019s no real wind down. It\u2019s just negotiations to get her into bed and to sleep as quickly as possible, so we can all pass out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Richter has found his place. The Chicago area native previously lived in New York \u2014 where he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[91543,9141,1461,70304,2899,87623,2303,48,52,51,28236,47,50,49,1741,15793,224,1977,1410,18069,4609],"class_list":{"0":"post-196421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-andy-richter","9":"tag-belmont-shore","10":"tag-breakfast","11":"tag-conan-obrien","12":"tag-dog","13":"tag-grandma","14":"tag-l-a","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-long-time","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-lot","23":"tag-mall","24":"tag-p-m","25":"tag-pasadena","26":"tag-place","27":"tag-sunset","28":"tag-wife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}