Charlie’s
Restaurant honors Los Alamos history
Holding
down the far end of Bell Street in Los Alamos, Charlie’s Restaurant is a
virtual hub for small-town pride and history. In fact, many would agree that
Charlie Gonzalez and his family do more than their share to keep the home-fires
burning for the little town they’ve called home for 50 years.
Charlie
Gonzalez is the second of three generations in the Los Alamos history books.
His father, Henry Gonzalez, originally from Santa Maria, quite literally found
the place by accident.
“Back
then no one really stopped in Los Alamos, but the freeway ran right through
downtown,” Gonzalez explained.
“My dad was driving his new Model A back from Santa Barbara when he broke an axel and coasted to a stop right in front of the water
tower. It was instantaneous — he knew he wanted to buy the building and move to
Los Alamos,” he said.
Charlie’s
mother wasn’t entirely sure about the plan to move from the “big city” to a township, population 400. Born in Betteravia,
Jessie Gonzalez had lived in Santa Maria since she was nine years old. She had
social status, crowned the first Queen of the Black and Blue Ball, a charity
organization that benefits the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs.
“I
remember Henry came home and asked if I wanted to move to Los Alamos. ‘No,’ was
my answer, but he was pretty determined to build our life here,” she said.
The
Gonzalez family business flourished in Los Alamos as the area meat locker
plant, located in the original water tower still standing downtown. Ranching
was the primary industry in those days, and Henry Gonzalez, a meat cutter by
trade, was known for only the best quality.
“One
part of his business was making hamburger patties for the local restaurants,”
Charlie explained. “Sometimes people would ask him to use cheap meat, but he
refused. He used to say, ‘If you want cheap, buy cheap. But if you want choice
customers, only buy choice product.”
The
meat locker is long gone, but those words still ring clear in Charlie’s mind,
now 30 years into the restaurant business and still carrying the torch for his
father’s business principles.
Established
in 1978, Charlie’s Restaurant opened as a continuation of the family business,
with Jessie in the kitchen, and later, Charlie’s nine-year-old daughter,
Cecilia, learning the ropes. Serving traditional American food, with some of
Mrs. Gonzalez’s choice Mexican recipes, such as Chile Verde, Charlie’s has also
come to be known for its quality.
With
some form of family business dating back to 1957, it’s no surprise that Charlie
has earned the distinction as Los Alamos’ oldest proprietor with nary a gray
hair on his head. Through the years of earning this distinction, Charlie has
watched as the landscape of surrounding Los Alamos has shifted from cattle
ranching to vineyards.
It
was in the early days of this change that Charlie started to formulate ideas
for how to honor the ranching history of Los Alamos.
“I
saw the ranching life begin to phase out on the big scale and knew that an era
was ending. I wanted to dedicate something to the old timers, and give
something back to the community,” Gonzalez said.
With
this in mind, Charlie began to envision a mural that depicted Los Alamos the
way it had been in his father’s day. In 2000, Charlie’s vision came full circle
when he met Hugh Slater, a western painter.
“I
commissioned him for two big paintings of local celebrity, Luke Branquinho, World Champion Steer Wrestler. I was so happy
with [Slater’s] paintings, I asked him to do a mural in the restaurant’s
garden,” he said.
Outside,
in the garden, Slater’s mural of Charlie’s vision holds court over the
tranquil, outdoor setting — dining tables smattered across a patch of lawn,
bordered by jasmine vines and a bubbling rock fountain. In the mural an
anonymous cowboy herds three Herefords, a type of cattle rarely seen in the
valley anymore, and behind him the golden Los Alamos hills give way to
snow-capped Figueroa Mountain.
The
centerpiece of the mural is a huge valley oak shooting up in the foreground,
its roots digging below the soil and scrawled with the names of the original
Los Alamos ranch owners, many of whom are long gone, but still deeply engrained
in the memory of Charlie’s childhood recollections.
Names
like Chebot, Pearson and Torres. In all there are
over 100 names seemingly etched in white paint in the roots of the oak.
“I
wanted something that would capture the feeling of the way it was; the way I
remember it,” Gonzalez explained.
An
era immortalized in history, Charlie got his wish to capture Los Alamos in his
father’s time — a time that precious few locals will ever forget.