Harry’s Plaza Cafe

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If you asked anyone who has lived in Santa Barbara over thirty years about old restaurants still alive, one name atop the short list would be Harry’s Plaza Cafe. Harry’s represents Santa Barbara tradition although tradition has nothing to do with quality. Located in the Loreto Plaza, at State and Las Positas, it has been a main stay since the early ’60s. If you live in Santa Barbara, chances are you have been there for a drink or for food. But if you went for the food, it wasn’t because you were in search of gourmet, more than likely you were just trying to beat the 11:30pm deadline to get your order in. And more than likely you just needed something to help soak up the alcohol you’ve consumed prior to 11:30pm, and something to dine on until the 2:00am bell.

Harry’s consists of a lot of old fashioned circular red booths and an innumerable quantity of very old pictures. If there is one place that has a large number of old pictures of our departed former president Ronald Reagan, it has to be Harry’s. I actually saw him right by the entrance riding his horse and smiling at us in what where undoubtedly better times. Better for him rather than us considering we had come to Harry’s in search of something to eat while we drank.

There are thousands of black and white pictures of Santa Barbara, some probably dating back a hundred years. There are very interesting aerial photos of State Street before it became the State Street we recognize, and lots of memorabilia of all kinds. As a matter of fact, the three giant rooms that compose the restaurant are totally covered with old pictures; that should keep you entertained while you’re waiting for your food or your bill. Maybe they have a secret hope you will become so mesmerized by the pictures that you won’t look at your food when it arrives, or think about it while you swallow.

So, what is safe to order at Harry's? A good question. One would have thought that a chicken pot pie with a side of fries and a hot open face turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, along with a salad with ranch dressing on the side wouldn't have been too complicated. Since we did not specify which side, right or left - the salad came with the ranch dressing smack dab in the center of the salad. The chicken pot pie retained its form and shape for exactly 30 seconds, but on the first scoop, it collapsed like a middle eastern regime never try and rise up again; in two minutes it turned into Technicolor oatmeal (peas and carrots) and shortly afterward, it died. I tried to find some chicken but everything had turned into a uniform and unidentifiable mass. The French fries were nice and crispy and sticking a large fry in the middle of the dead chicken pot pie and squeezing a smaller one across it created a nice cross. A friend once ordered the French dip...don't. So, what is safe to order at Harry's? Any cocktail...except shrimp.

Summer Home Park, Forestville

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The ad mentioned a cabin for rent in Summer Home Park. Not yet familiar with the Russian River area, my first impression was a trailer park filled with giant silver beer cans… and apparently at least one cabin. How wrong – Summer Home Park, founded in 1908, stretches along the Russian River and includes a summer only lodge, outdoor movie theater, and private beach accessible by a temporary bridge and dock. The cabins (1-7 bedrooms) are built alongside the river although the “park” includes a few canyon roads where there is no river view, but safe from the river’s flooding. This rental consisted of a two story cabin, two balconies, five bedrooms, across from the beach on stilts along the river’s edge. During the winter the park is virtually empty, most of these cabins are second homes and some owners have not returned for years. In the two years I lived there, my neighbor to my right came only once for two weeks one summer. The neighbor to my left never once came, although an Osprey visited their balcony on occasion.

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Here’s a photo circa 1950’s[?] that shows the beach area located a little further up river from the lodge. I’ve circled the cabin where I lived for a couple years. All in all there has been little change, at least for this section of the river and Summer Home Park.

 

Update: The house is for sale. The asking price is $349,000 dollars — up a bit from the price of these homes/cabins when I lived there. Of course this has a river view and with some work the 3 additional bedrooms add to the potential ‘resort rental’ income through the spring and summer months. Too cold downstairs to legitimately advertise it as a 5 bedroom home (year round). At any rate it was a great couple years living above the river. No one around after Labor Day except the squirrels.

 

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Ruth’s Diner – Emigration Canyon, Utah

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2007 marks the seventy seventh anniversary of Ruth’s Diner and makes it the second oldest Restaurant in Utah Unfortunately, Ruth didn’t live to see it. She passed away in November of 1989 at the age of 94. She was a great story teller–a spirited woman whose language could embarrass a gangster.

As a young woman, she was very pretty, shown by the photos on the diner wall. Ruth performed in some of the bars around Salt Lake City as a cabaret singer from about 1912 to 1916. She tells of being dragged off the stage one night by a jealous woman with a fierce grip on her hair, although “the biddy regretted herself for some time to come.”

In 1930 she started the diner as Ruth’s Hamburgers downtown in the Meredith Building at 120 East Second South. The location was directly across the street from a very small house of ill repute and Ruth fed the girls and listened to their stories about various police, politicians, judges and other clients.

After many years of flipping burgers downtown, her building was sold and demolished. So she bought a Salt Lake Trolley car and moved it up Emigration Canyon where she reopened in 1949. Ruth built an apartment onto the back of her trolley car (it’s now the lower dining area and kitchen) and lived on the property alone with her Chihuahua dogs for almost forty years.
Ruth was extremely independent but did make two known concessions late in her life. When she turned eighty, she switched from Lucky Strikes to a filtered cigarette, and she finally placated the health department by posting a hand written sign on the wall next to the door which read “No Smoking Section – First Bar Stool Only.”

During the 50’s and 60’s, Ruth’s became a familiar stop for the fraternity boys looking for a cold beer and some local color. ID’s weren’t carefully checked since Ruth didn’t think any more of that law than she did the new smoking ordinances. “They can enforce their own laws!” Her dogs were just as spirited as she was and often tried to bite any customers they didn’t know.

Although she sold the diner in 1977 (to one of the college boys who’d been a regular for 20 years), Ruth lived out her last years in the duplex behind the diner. On her 90th birthday, a waitress paid Ruth a visit after her shift. She sat down on the couch, but felt something hard. She reached between the cushions and found a gun. She said, “Ruth, this gun is loaded!” Ruth replied, “Well, it wouldn’t do me any damn good if it wasn’t.”

Visiting a friend in Salt Lake City, we drove through the Emigation Canyon area and stopped at Ruth’s for a beer. Didn’t get to meet Ruth, but just pulling in and seeing a trolly car atop a mountain, you know you’ve found a place with history.

Moons Over MyAmmy

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Although the title is Backroads, this post certainly covers backsides and instead of a road it’s a train track. It’s an event that one might consider worth seeing once, although many believe this is preety assinine. From inside one of the trains headed south, the scenery outside the window is a few hundred yards of California butt, big ones, small ones, wide ones, rows of backsides like billboards along the freeway all with the same ad. As a greeter to Amtrak riders, one waits for the passing of the next train at which point everyone butts up along the chain link fence and promptly smiles accordingly.

The annual Mooning of Amtrak event takes place every July at the Mugs Away Saloon in Laguna Niguel. Although it’s not organized in any formal way, it draws thousands of people out to order the Moons Over My Amtrak. This order is generally served with beer whereas Denny’s® “Moons Over My Hammy®” feeds thousands of people, is available 24/7 365 and is usually served with a cup of coffee.

This event isn’t just for pranksters, although mooning is rapidly becoming a lost art. As you can see from the photo of 72-year-old Carol Wichenheisser, (top row, 3rd photo in the photo grid) the event attracts people from all ends of the rectum, I mean, spectrum. Back at you, as shown in the photo above.

For an entire day, a diverse squadron of mild exhibitionists line up along a fence outside the saloon and flash the Amtrak trains that go by. That’s it.

It’s become such a popular local ritual that sometimes people ride the trains in order to reciprocate, in fact, tickets sell out for many moons in advance.

I’ve even seen a picture of the rear of a man who was driving one of the Amtrak trains. Not only did he put the loco in locomotive, he effectively provided future plaintiffs their Exhibit A in any lawsuit against Amtrak for negligence.

This ritual started back in July 1979 when K.C. Smith offered free drinks to anyone in the bar who would moon the next train to pass the saloon. This became an annual tradition and Mugs Away just celebrated its 28th anniversary of inebriated arse-airing. Butt aways behind is the annual mooning of the Metrolink, next year will celebrate only year three.

The Brass Ass

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The Ass-to-Ass Run

Back then the Brass Ass translated to fun. Actually, it was the Brass Asses, a pair of pizza places located in Cotati (near what is now Oliver’s Market) and Santa Rosa (in the Montgomery Village shopping center) way back in the ’70s and early ’80s.

Some are still praying for a Brass Ass resurrection, almost 20 years after the last Ass shut its doors. The Ass is missed for several reasons, who didn’t enjoy saying “Brass Ass.” And two, the pizza.

But best of all was the Ass-to-Ass race, an annual marathon that began at the Cotati Ass, stretched over to the Santa Rosa Ass, and back again. (that’s one big ass). An immensely popular event, it reveled in the sheer weird-ass outlandishness of its own name. Those lacking in motivation were permitted to participate in a shortened version of the run called the Half-Ass, in which runners stopped for beer and pizza in Santa Rosa and never bothered to run back to the starting line. It was a time when folks were never more proud of their Asses.

Summer Solstice Parade

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Summer Solstice Parade began in 1974, as a birthday celebration for a popular artist and mime named Michael Gonzales. Michael belonged to a group called the Mime Caravan. After completing a long tour on the road, his birthday celebration spilled onto State Street as he and his friends danced through town wearing elaborate masks. It expanded to something more formal after the Museum of Santa Barbara received a gift of ancient Chinese instruments on the condition that they are played once a year. The museum contacted the artist, and his birthday celebration grew to include music. The parade took place on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice. The rest is history. Unfortunately, so is Michael Gonzales. He died in the 1980’s, and there has been far more Solstice celebrations without him than with him.

Santa Barbara Solstice Parade moves to Clevland, Ohio. Well, sort of. VanLear, who coordinated the parade in Santa Barbara when she worked at the museum there, brought the concept to Cleveland in 1990 to celebrate the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 75th anniversary. Called “Parade the Circle”, many of the floats and costumes are very similar in design.

The Solstice Parade is the largest, single-day arts event in Santa Barbara County, drawing crowds of over 100,000 spectators from around the world.

Pink Elephant

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The Russian River resort town of Monte Rio is the only place I know of where seeing a Pink Elephant doesn’t necessarily mean you’re drunk. Of course, considering that the Pink Elephant is one of the North Bay’s preeminent dive bars, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sober, either.

Monte Rio is a depressed Northern California town of 900 where the forest is so thick that some streetlights stay on all day long. In the 1930’s it was a small but popular tourist spot, one Monte Rio hotel is listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not, as each floor was a ground level floor, but the hotel had seven floors. The Pink Elephant was built sometime around 1937, today it’s the town’s only landmark, although do a Google Search for the Bohemian Grove and you’ll find that just up the forest from this bar is the meeting place for a private society (The Bohemian Club) consisting of some of the most powerful men in the world ….but that’s a different story altogether, …back at the bar…

The appeal of “the Pink” extends to a suprisingly large line of Pink Elephant merchandise (thongs and tote bags, no joke) and even a slogan: “All roads lead to the Pink.” This is hilarious, because this bar is literally a semicircular corrugated-metal inverted halfpipe smack in the middle of “Heroin Hill” – the part of Monte Rio on the other side of the river. The locals are missing teeth and the bartenders are rough around the edges, but the drinks are stiff and the camp appeal is magnetic. The bathrooms are two wooden outhouses, inside the bar. During one storm the back storage room broke off and fell into the creek, creating a brief moment of sobriety for patrons inside. The decor; a painting of a scantily clad, large breasted bartender that is behind the stage, and a similarily adorned woman dancing with a bear in front, and one of an elephant chasing a man with a beer through the jungle are from the forties and were made as donations in exchange for a large bar tab which couldn’t be paid. As small as it is, it attracted some of the most famous San Francisco bands including the Grateful Dead. Not on the beaten path, unless you’re driving the river area, but if so, you can’t miss it, especially at night.

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Earl Warren Showgrounds

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It seems that my interest in the events at the Earl Warren Showgrounds pattern closely a Titan weather report. For those not in the NASA circle, about every 15 years there is a change…quite similar to how I viewed the showgrounds.It began for me as a concert venue, in the days of black lights, bell bottoms, recreational drugs [alledgedly]. I was only in my first year of Junior High, but thankfully my friend had an older sister and we got to join in on many an adventure I probably would have missed otherwise. From the Greasy Slough Duck Club, the Trout Club, and the Earl Warren showgrounds.

So the Titan weather report calls for rock concerts; Led Zepplin, Cream, Blind Faith, and a list of others that I can’t recall. I don’t know why the concerts stopped, or maybe I did and they didn’t. But it just seemed like the music got smaller, and moved to the Santa Barbara County Bowl, the Arlington Theater, anywhere other than Earl Warren.

Titan weather report [15 years later] – not exactly ‘yee haw’, ‘howdy pardner’, but life in Sonoma County had put California country into me. Boots, cowboy hats and a haircut. Not just a haircut, the first one in about 9 years. Visiting Santa Barbara every so often, I’d actually check out the rodeo held in the summer. Who’d believe that 15 years later my boot would be side stepping a pile of horse manure in the same spot where I’d been frozen in a daze, standing under a stack of Marshall speakers watching Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton perform guitar magic.

Titan weather report [15 years later] – Off track betting on the horse races. It’s really not a part of the showgrounds, but operates on the showground property. Doesn’t matter to me though, it serves my purpose. Now the marquee usually seems to be advertising a dog show, cat show or flower show. Doesn’t matter to me. As long as I can place a wager if I need to, then I’m happy. Of course, there is no substitute for actually being at the track, especially down along the rail, but in an emergency, when you know you’ve got a winner and you need to drop some green, you’re in Santa Barbara…all roads point to the entrance off Las Positas.

Little Superstar

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We’ve lost James Brown and we’re not sure exactly sure what, where, or when it all went wrong regarding Michael Jackson, but it appears the void they have created has finally been filled.

It comes in a small package and surprisingly from afar, India to be exact. The little guy’s stage name is Thavakalai (Tamil for “frog”), an adult Indian actor who made his acting debut back in 1983, and usually playing the role of a child. At first I was quite impressed after watching the video, but soon found it to be a bit disturbing. I can’t quite describe how or why, but the more I watch it, the more weird it all is to me. Oh well, live with it…got to hand it to the country, if you have a question and use the telephone to ask it – you’re probably speaking to someone who lives there. Tech support, customer support, medical transcribing, data processing, they do it all. Move over Hollywood, I expect that a country with over 1 billion people will produce a lot more little superstars?


Viva La Fiasco!

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Fiesta – Old Spanish Days

In the year 1924, two circumstances motivated the first Fiesta. First there had for some time been a feeling among the business people of the city that Santa Barbara should have an annual summer event to entertain and attract visitors. The city had come to be a favorite place for winter tourists, but these visitors had not been drawn here in any considerable number during the summer months.

Secondly, in August of 1924, the Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara planned the opening of the new Lobero Theatre, which had been erected on the site of the old historic theatre founded by Josx (Giuseppe) Lobero and built by the assistance of Col. Wm. Hollister. A member of the Community Arts Association, J. Wm. McLennen, conceived the idea of having a celebration to mark the opening of the new theatre. He approached a merchants’ association and a committee was formed of which Charles E. Pressley was elected chairman. The group began to formulate plans for the celebration, to be comprised of a number of activities to include a parade, aquatic and sports events and, of course, a gala celebration at the theatre on its opening night.

1924 — The First Historical Parade

1926 — La Fiesta Pequeña

1934 — Noches De Ronda Santa Barbara County Courthouse Garden  

1936 — La Misa Del Presidente

1949 — El Mercado

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With it’s history in place, the Fiesta for me represented nearly a week of eating good Mexican food, drinking a lot of beer, and watching the fiesta goers from one of the best vantage points.

My friend Arturo was the son and nephew of the owners of two of Santa Barbara’s finest restaurants. The El Paseo restaurant, one of the two, was located in the historic El Paseo, in the center of downtown. The main section was an open air plaza with a balcony that housed a couple offices, the important one being a local modeling agency. Second only to the beautiful girls entering and exiting the agency was that the balcony served as a comfortable bird’s eye view for fiesta goer’s down below. By early evening the plaza was standing room only.

Papagallo’s has closed, the tortas sold at the El Mercado don’t seem to taste the same, and dancing to a mariachi band under a string of lights on a side street corner can no longer be found.