Update: RIP Andrea Pruett, beloved owner of Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs. Prayers to her family, friends and many fans. Bagdad had fallen on hard times the past few years following a fire that destroyed Andrea’s home.
Many thanks to supporters for generous donations raised at fundraisers to procure Bagdad Cafe repairs, including a repair grant from Rhys Martin, President of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, and from Sarah Jane Woodall (Wonderhussy) for organizing a meetup to raise funds for the cafe in Spring 2025.
Andrea was 85 years old and will be missed by many fans from all over the world.
Repose en paix, Andrea Pruett, propriétaire bien-aimée du Bagdad Cafe à Newberry Springs, en Californie. Nos pensées et nos prières accompagnent sa famille, ses amis et ses nombreux admirateurs.
Update: We would like to wish owner Andrea Pruett who turns 83 years old on June 19, 2023 a very Happy Birthday! Bagdad Cafe is currently no longer serving food but is open for visits by tourists and is selling T-shirts, Route 66 souvenirs, soda, beer and coffee. Miss Andrea has owned Bagdad Cafe for 20 years but suffered a series of setbacks.
The camera pans across the barren land, and focuses on a lonely German woman with her suitcase in hand. She walks silently towards the place just ahead. Then you hear a most enchanting voice sing:
“Desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Some place better than where you’ve been
A coffee machine that needs some fixing
In a little cafe’ just around the bend . . .”
For us and countless others, Jevetta Steele’s haunting lyrics from the song, “Calling You,” from the 1987 indie cult classic “Bagdad Cafe” will forever evoke the particularities of a small desert town on Route 66 contrasted with the vastness of the Mojave Desert.
There’s something almost alchemical about the way the song “Calling You” works in the context of Bagdad Cafe. Jevetta Steele’s voice doesn’t just accompany the film… it haunts the landscape, turning a lonely stretch of Route 66 into something mythic, tender, and strangely luminous.
The song captures that paradox the Mojave Desert does so well: the intimacy of a tiny, weather‑beaten outpost and the overwhelming immensity of the desert pressing in from every direction.
Steele’s vocals, yearning, suspended, almost as weightless as an unexpected cool breeze, seem to rise straight out of a shimmering mirage. They make the town feel like a refuge and a crossroads at the same time, a place where people drift in half‑lost and drift out changed.
However, Bagdad Cafe was not actually shot in Bagdad.
Not Bagdad, California, and not Baghdad, Iraq
The German film, directed by Percy Adlon, was filmed in Newberry Springs at the former Sidewinder Cafe, which decided to let the name Bagdad Cafe live on, drawing throngs of international tourists like moths to a flame.
The award-winning movie is also known on foreign markets as Out of Rosenheim.
“I am calling you
can’t you hear me
I am calling you…”
The Bagdad Cafe remains an iconic stop on Route 66. The real Bagdad is further up the road.
Down an even lonelier road than this place. Only a cemetery remains there, and no one calls at all.
The Bagdad Cafe movie, loosely based on Carson McCuller’s 1951 novella, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, focuses on a desert motel, a diner owner and her guest, and two women whose husbands just left them.
The odd women slowly develop a rocky friendship which blossoms into a transformative experience for both. Several colorful characters live there, as well.
It runs 95 minutes in the U.S. and 108 minutes in the German version. We’d like to watch the German version to see what landed on the cutting room floor of the American one. We bet it does not disappoint.
Because of the fame of the quirky movie, a television sitcom bearing the same enigmatic title, came to prime time in 1990 but didn’t last long. Fifteen episodes made their way out of the can but the ill-fated show was not renewed for a second season.
Despite accomplished actors, nothing could compare to the flash in the pan success of the original. It still holds an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Curious where the Bagdad’s guests come from? According to the California Historic Route 66 Association in 2021…
70% from France. Why? The 1987 film Bagdad Cafe is a cult film favorite there. It is not uncommon for two to three tour buses to pull up to the Cafe daily during the French travel season. The average motorcoach tour accommodates 45-50. French visitors on self-drive itineraries stop by the Cafe as well.
25% from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Canada.
5% come from California and the USA.
Nothing remains of the original Bagdad Cafe where Bagdad once stood further down on Route 66, once owned and operated by Alice Lawrence.
Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs serves only standard American fare, but it is interesting to read the layers of comments, notes and business cards in many languages that visitors have left on the walls throughout the years. The adoration and worship for the movie and locale are still very evident.
If you look carefully, you will even find one from The Desert Way.
Directions
Just off I-40, about 15 minutes south of I-15 (Harvard Rd. exit).
46548 National Trails Hwy
Newberry Springs, CA 92365
Phone number (760) 257-3101
Last Updated: January 17, 2026
Recommended Resources
Bagdad History and Cemetery https://thedesertway.com/bagdad-cemetery
My sister and I owned Sidewinder Cafe when the movie was made. After the movie was finished we went back to Sidewinder Cafe. We closed the cafe in 1991 due to a family illness. When it was reopened is when the name went from Sidewinder Cafe to Bagdad Cafe.
Greetings,
Somehow your comment got overlooked, so here we are two years later, answering it. We apologize for the lag time. That is great that you and your sister owned the cafe at that time. The film remains one of our very favorites. It is the essence of the desert in a manner of speaking. If you have any photos of the film production, or other interesting subjects, and would be willing to share them, we will happily give you and your sister credit in print for the contribution. Also, if you’d be willing to be interviewed, by phone or in person, about the making of the film along with your recollections, we would love to talk with you. Of course, we’d also be happy to mail a few of our “Seek the Heat, The Desert way” decals to you as well.
Thank you for the great feedback,
Regards,
Jaylyn and John