July 19, 2024 • 24 mins
In this episode of Locales Only, we’re taking a drive down history lane with the owner and founder of one the oldest restaurants in Newport Beach, Ron Salisbury. Ron and his family have owned The Cannery and several other restaurants for over 100 years! Today, we are going to hear about what the restaurant scene looked like almost a century ago, how Ron once got 1.7 million dollars in the span of 60 seconds to keep his restaurant alive, and what we can all learn about investing in your neighborhood spot. So buckle up and enjoy the conversation on Locales Only.
Big thanks to Fletcher-Jones Motorcar of Newport Beach for sponsoring the show and building out the all-electric Mercedes-Benz EQE as our rolling podcast studio!
Big thanks to Fletcher-Jones Motorcar of Newport Beach for sponsoring the show and building out the all-electric Mercedes-Benz EQE as our rolling podcast studio!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Hey, Ron, It's Eric from Locals Only. How are
you hi, Eric? How are you hey? Good?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'll be pulling up in front of the cannery in
just about thirty seconds if you want to come out.
I'm in a white Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey. Welcome to Locals Only.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Eric Hale And if you don't know me, I'm
the guy that founded Local Magazine fourteen years ago in
my garage.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's been my job for all.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Those years to tell you the coolest places to eat
in all of southern California, fun things to do, so
you have date nights that aren't boring, and we've talked
to some really interesting people. Now we have a podcast,
and we're lucky enough to call this Mercedes Benz EQE
all electric sedan courtesy of Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in
Newport Beach. Our mobile podcasts do do. So sit back,
(00:44):
buckle up, and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Enjoy the conversation. Welcome to Local Zone.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Today, we're cruising down the Newport Beach Peninsula with Ron Salisbury.
Ron's family open del Solo one hundred years go and
he still owns that, plus the cannery and Louis on
the Bay and at ninety years old, he's opened up
two new restaurants just this year. Today, we're going to
talk about his love of baseball. We'll talk about the
history of his restaurants and how his letter writing campaign
(01:15):
got him to be friends with a lot of really
cool celebrities. So sit back, buckle up, and enjoy low Calzono.
We're with Ron Salisbury. Ron is the owner of quite
a few things. Elcholo restaurant chain, which has been around
(01:37):
for just over one hundred years now. We just picked
him up at the Cannery, which is here in Newport Beach.
He also has Louise and right across the bay and.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
The Cannery and the Cannery, and we just opened a
new restaurant called the Ilogato, which we had a restaurant
for forty one years up in Lahabra and it was
a fine dining restaurant and we kind of ran out
of the neighborhood change and in a medium price to
Italian restaurant that just opened. So then we're done. We're done.
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, you just opened also a restaurant in Utah too.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, that's seven months ago now.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
If a lot of our listeners don't know Ron just
you can't tell it by the way he looks. Celebrated
his ninetieth birthday a few months back, but you're still
opening a restaurant after restaurant. You might be one of
the few people that have opened two restaurants right around
your night birthday.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Would you say, well, I don't feel ninety and I
feel like life just goes on. This is what I've
always done. People say, why are you doing it? That's
what I've always done.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, maybe maybe we can just go back a little bit,
because I think you have a pretty interesting story. Not
too many people go back ninety years into the la
restaurant scene.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Your Elcholo restaurant was started by your parents.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Grandparents, My grandparents, My grandparents had the first one was
over by the La Call theme on two streets would
called Manita and Santa Barbara, which now is Broadway and
Martin Luther King. Okay, and then he goes back that
far you and then my four years into it, my
dad walked My mother was a server there. My dad
walked in, had lunch, met my mom, and they decided
(03:13):
because they were when my dad quit in the fifth grade,
because he was the sole money earner for his family
and his mother was a widow, and so they needed,
you know, the depression and they needed to do something
which you give them a good life and something they
could be proud of. And they opened their own alcholo
concurrently with my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's that's a long history there.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And the restaurant that they opened, it's it's close by,
it's right across the street from the original house.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, so one one on the way open on Western Avenue,
and they just went to a little storefront had the
three booths, wooden boost and an encounter and I was it.
And then the typical California bungalows, which is which was
what they were building in those days. One of those
came for sale across the street and my dad bought it,
and everybody told me, it's gets crazy because he's going
to spoil this great little restaurant. They had move and
(04:00):
the house was really you know, one of the one
of the dining rooms was the former living room, one
was the dining room, one was the kitchen, and then
there's two bedrooms in it and we had one bathroom
which had a tub in it. And so for many years,
the key story of the bathroom, which was became the
women's room had a bathtub in.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It, and so that's the same restaurant you can go
to today.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, my grand little different.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
My grandparents one my older my mother's older sister took
it over after my grandparents no longer could and then
she sold it nineteen fifty and it disappeared. So yeah,
right now we kind of say the original is the
one on the western still there?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
And where did that? Where did your grandparents' recipes come from?
Because my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That time and one hundred years ago in La I
think the sign out front even says Spanish food, correct,
because people had a negative connotation about mex Hispanic.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You're right if you you and you would not call
your food Mexicans perceived is not healthier saniter. So I'm
a reason today they have open kitchens. My dad had
an open kitchen so he could look in it for
that very reason, so we could see how clean and
well kept up it was. And the recipes go back
to my grandmother. And I feel refortunate because the old
typical story again, they were they were a young couple
(05:23):
that came from the territory of Arizona over dirt roads
in a car that probably traveled twenty miles an hour.
I can't picture how it was. And they came to
Los Angeles with the sole purpose of creating a little
business they could be proud of and they could give
them good living. And so then they arrived here and
my one night, my grandfather pushed back from the dinner
(05:46):
table and said, you're such a good cook, let's let's
just open a restaurant. And yeah, there's last words. But
my fortunate thing was she was a great cook, and
we stayed true to her their recipes all these years.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
What were some of your favorites that your grandma used
to make you?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, you know, back then, the menu was very simple
to either cheese, enchilava, chili, renal, tomali or renal. Yeah, taco,
I'm sorry. So yeah, And so the menu we now
created for a hundredth anversity, a really large plate that
puts those four items on there with beans and rice,
which is really the original menu we had all on
(06:26):
one plate. We call it taste the history.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, and then you you've taken that one location in
your generation, and you've paid multiple locations. So let's let's
move away from the restaurants a little bit. We can
come back and maybe talk about the cannery. Sure, that's
a really interesting story as well, But let's talk about
you a little bit. I think we know each other personally,
and one of the things that I find really endearing
(06:50):
about you and some of the relationships that you've made
over the years with people that you admired. Maybe tell
us a little bit about how you started reaching out
to these people that you admire and some of those
people that you've made contact with.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, first of all, there's so many people come in
the restaurant. It afforded me i'd to get to know
I get to know people from all walks of life,
all interesting things, and that alone has provided me some wonderful,
wonderful friends and wonderful experiences. The other one I reached
out When you have a restaurant, it's kind of easier
to reach out to people because they identify the restaurant.
(07:24):
Ray Bradbury was a someone I had really respected from
a long distance and wrote to him one time and said, yeah,
and I saw he had he'd spoken in downtown LA
and there was a bunda saying where all these great
minds came together. The only one I remember was his talk,
because he talked about what he called the yellow brick
Road to revitalize downtown, where you leave your work and
(07:45):
you follow the yellow brick road, just hit this place.
Then you'd have cocktails in here, and then you moved
to the bookstore. And then you know, he had a
great imagination and great vision. And I so enjoyed his talk.
I wrote to him. I said, I'd like to have
dinner with you and just get to hear more about it.
Then out of that came a really deep friendship. And
he would write poetry and you send it to me,
(08:05):
what do you think?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And I just started with a letter. So just a letter, kids,
if you're listening.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A letter is like something you write on paper with
a pin or a pencil if you haven't seen orcles
in the post office box.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And he wrote back exactly, and I you know, I mean,
if you do that, you don't expect to hear back, right,
So you expect to On the flip side, you might
just make a connection. You might even have an incredible
experience one time with something like that, or if the
game grows into a lifelong friendship, so you have nothing
(08:36):
to lose and everything to gain. I tell people about this.
I say, who would you like to meet? They'll give
me the name. I'll say, write them a letter. They
never do. I've never had one person till may do it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Let's go into your love of baseball.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So if you haven't been in too, let's say the
Cannery in the Newport Beach definitely should go.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
It's one of our favorite restaurants. Thank you, my wife
and I.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's close to our house. But you have a kind
of a mini hall of fame, hall of fame just
in your love. You have check signed by I think
be Roope. Do you have lots of bulk Tycob Tykob
sorry lots and ye, just great artifacts in this museum.
And you started doing this hot stumer well around the
(09:20):
baseball season when they're doing all the trades. And how
did that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, I thought, I thought, the Canry is going to
be my last restaurant. I was sixteen, nine years old,
and now again by itself is an amazing story how
they came out. But so you had this seafood restaurant,
and I thought, since it's the last restaurant, how can
I kind of weave the baseball into it? And then
I thought in the old Man in the sea. When
the old Man is coming back and the sharks have
(09:46):
devoured his great catch, he says to himself, I must think,
because that's all I have left, which is a great lion,
and then says that in baseball, Yeah, not many people
had caught that dead. Thought, oh, that's my opening Old
Man c baseball. So we put that over the host desk,
and then I thought, my wife gave me a few
(10:06):
years back as signed check by Ty Cobb. I thought, well,
let me start collecting it because the restaurant is not
about current athletes and who are there. That restaurant is
about the greatest that ever lived the tradition and the
greatest that ever played the game. And I thought that
represents hopefully what that restaurant can become. So I started
(10:28):
collecting other pictures, memorabilia and putting them up in the
in the room.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Now, let's get around to the cannery, because I think
there's a.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Lot of people that might listen to this that have
eaten at the cannery, but probably a lot of people
don't know its history.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Right. I live on the hill just there in Newports.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You can almost see the cannery from where I live,
but there's a whole story in a backstore. It was
a working cannery for a long time, and actually the
neighborhood I lived in housed a lot of workers, right right,
Maybe tell me the story a little bit about the Canary, Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Well, as you point out, in nineteen twenty two, it
was a canary along with many other canories back there
in the bay. Nineteen seventy two, very enterprising gentlemen gathered
some friends together and they said, let's build a restaurant
in this canary building. And it became the Cannery and
was from nineteen seventy two to nineteen ninety nine. It
(11:21):
was a kind of a classic restaurant on the Bay
and really had created a restaurant created by memories. Nineteen
ninety nine they sold the property and it was going
to be torn down and developed into just this is
one of my greatest stories ever. I loved telling. It
is being torn down and developed into condominiums, just like
(11:43):
everything else around there. And a man I did not
know the time, he developed Bare Paints bhr. He never
ate in the cannery, but he said, you know, I
can't stay my neighborhood losing an iconic landmark restaurant. So
he went out and paid three three times it was
worth to save it. And I met Jack and Jack said,
(12:05):
I'll give you whatever money takes a bit to put
it together. I thought, well why not? And you know,
I went from el chola, which I say, are they're
like soloists having to play their instrument to perfection, to
a restaurant, which is like a symphony orchestra. It's complicating, complex,
but it gave me, at the age of sixty nine,
a renewed opportunity to learn new things, fresh new things,
(12:28):
make some mistakes, and grow and meet new people. So
it was It's been amazing in my life. So anyway,
Jack gave us, well, he gave us eight hundred thousand
dollars and it wasn't enough because the restaurant was really
in bad, bad shape. So a little bit and Jacket
only met me half a dozen times. We're walking through
and Dan he says, oh, this has to be costing
(12:48):
you more of the money I gave you. And I said, well, Jack,
yes it is. Hopefully. He pulls that check book out
of his pocket. Who cares? Check what? He writes me
a check for five hundred thousand dollars I knew it
was for.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And this is also, I mean, this is twenty years ago.
These numbers were talking about bigger. But he was really
so dedicated to having his community keep that restaurant.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
But he didn't really know me. That's the thing. He
didn't know me, and so he's right. And he said,
I said, what's this for? It I knew it was for.
He said, you need more money. Here it is Jack,
We can't take it. We have a deal. He said,
I insist you take it. I said, you insists will
take it. I said, but we're raising money through investors.
Oh do you have some room left investors? Yes? Yes,
(13:32):
and he says, can I have seven hundred thousand dollars
of that? Oh my god. So in the space of
sixty seconds, the man gives me one point two million
dollars to a person he didn't really know who. In
most in the restaurant business, you know, most restaurants don't
last very long, and more likelihood, this restaurant's going to
be out of business in a few years. He's trusted
me that kind of money. But Jack has an amazing
(13:54):
insight one a side. I asked it one time, how
did you run a company as big as bear. He said.
I simply told everybody when they company with a situation,
I said, you know what, just do the right thing.
I said, That's all he told him. He said, and
then you have to go back and think what is
the right thing. And he says the company ran smoothly.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
And he said, it's such simple advice and great advice
for business owners to maybe not be so exact, maybe
not be so involved, but say do the right.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Thing and involved the person they owned it. They grew
from doing it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It was.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That's why he's such a great person.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And but now I have to say he wasn't just
giving the money to anybody that he had just met. No,
you had about fifty years experience running in restaurants.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
He had. He had a good feeling about you too.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
But there's people give me a million and a half
and I'm in Argentina, you.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Know, oh right, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And so anyway, on the other side, we're sitting in
the attorney's office and the attorney says, Jack, you need
this in the lease. And Jack turns to me and says,
if that's in the least is to make it harder
for you to operate. I said, well, the course it does,
then I don't want it in the least, So you
get you get the picture. And he was just it's
(15:08):
an incredible story. I'm incredibly blessed to have this half
of my life. It changed my life. It introduced me,
made me feel more a part of the community. It
introduced me all these wonderful people that I never would
have met if the restaurant wasn't there. It was just,
I'm the luckiest guy.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean, we're just going through. You've got to meet
your idols. You've had this restaurant, you've had this longevity
of life, and and you've also got to do things
that make you really happy and successful.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I mean, those are all testaments to it a life
well lived. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
A couple of other toss in. David Halberstam was an
author Peel, the surprize winning author has written some great
his three books, and I was just enthralled with his rioting.
Because some people you read, you can skip. I couldn't skip.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I had to hang on everywhere when he writes, wrote
him for five years ago, never heard from him. All
of a sudden, I'm in the hospital with bleeding ulcers,
and he calls the office of this He said, Ron
had been trying to get hold me for five years
to have dinner. I'm in town. Is he still interested?
And they called me and said I said, I'm leaving
the hospital. And so we sat at the in the
patio at the cannery one night and I just said
(16:15):
I didn't talk much. I just listened. But I hear
on a chance to spend an evening with David telling
anybody who's a war correspondent, telling all his brilliant guy.
I got to meet him. We were starting to develop
a friendship, and he was t boned in an intersection
when Timon killed shortly after.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Did that spur you to write your book?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Because I know no book about the everything they.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Didn't teach you at the CLO. But that's kind of
a fun title.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Right, yeah, son? But I wrote the book because I
just thought, you know, as you can tell, I like
to tell stories. I've got some stories I love to tell,
and so I just put him into a book.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And that's now the CIA.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And for those of you guys that are listening, uh,
it's not for the CI, it's for the Culinary Institute,
right and knowing wrong for a long time, I would
say maybe fifteen years ago, Ron and I went on
a drive and we were talking restaurants, and I was
a lot younger than and I was chipping in with
all these ideas as I normally do. And it was
(17:12):
the first time I think I had a conversation with
somebody just because of your years of wisdom, where every
idea throughout you said, I tried that, already tried that,
did I really? But but it was I think it
was humbling to me in a certain extent, but it
was also good to see what wisdom was, right. It's
it's that accumulation of knowledge is not just being smart's
(17:34):
common sense learn lessons, and common sense comes from probably
learning lessons in good ways and bad ways.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Right, So that's all the book is just a bunch
of whole common sense ideas that make you think too differently.
It's printans. I got healed up one time and the
guy had a gun in my head and he needs
to take me to the safe. And all I could
think of was I wish I had a second safe,
because because if I had a second safe, I would
put the real money in the second safe. I would
have token money in the first one because nobody said
(18:00):
is now that we've open your first safe, let's about
the second. Save it just it'sbuch a witty you know,
or things how to operate the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And I about to recommend to anybody that's looking at
getting in the restaurant business. Also probably get a psychiatric
evaluation now if you're looking to get into it. But
I had a lot of fun really funny read you
can you can get that book. So we're about to
the end of our ride here. But maybe you know,
maybe talk about.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
At ninety right. You know, you've accomplished a lot.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I've had a great life.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
What else do you want to accomplish? What is what?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And it might not be a thing, but what else
is there left for you to do that you're really
excited about? To get you up every morning because you
guys can see him on camera, run gets up, he's
driving around in his nice car, he's at his restaurant,
he's working. I mean sometimes long shifts like what's that
motivational factor?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What are you still trying to?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Well? I think we had the one hundred anniversary for
the restaurant, and I always get up in the morning
thinking what am I going to deal with today and
whether it's tomorrow mean. And I never looked back and appreciated.
So one of the most frequently asked questions at our
Hanso is looking back what you see and enjoy. And
I looked back and I started, Oh, my gosh, there's
so much richness here. In the stories, we have to
(19:18):
tell what this restaurant it means to people. I've had
the restaurant in Saltlake. We opened, and I had people
gripping my hands crying because they moved to Utah, thought
they'd never go to Elholo again, and now El shows
there and it's a very emotion. We've had five generations
eating with us in the stories. I spent the first
three weeks just going from table to table having people
(19:39):
look at me and tell me how much the restaurant
meant to them. Was just a restaurant, it was part
of their life. And so I realized that with this
we really we really created something. So let just try
and use that to do something even more so it's
a little complicated. We dedicated to raise a million dollars
pediatric cancer research, and one things we did was they'll
(20:00):
naming rights perman naming bites and brass plaque to some
of my iconic boosts. We've done other things we had fundraised,
but anyway, so then I thought, I think we should
now not only just be happy to do this for
one year from now on our second hundred years, we're
going to take a h arity or a cause every
year and we will name it, will dedicating to help
(20:22):
that cause through raising money for it and bringing awareness
to it. So we can do that is because we
know people believe in us. It's more more than just
a restaurant. I want to turn the restaurant into a
second a next school, because I think people graduate from school,
they get a job, and now it's just I'll do
(20:42):
the job, here's your paycheck, and we go home. And
I've seen the opportunity to work with younger people or
people that we can teach them. This is their next school.
I view it. We're in the next school, and I
want to do everything we can to turn this next school.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We have.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
We started a few years ago. I like to read
a lot, and I like to read a lot of
books that I feel are helpful for you to read.
We'll really change your life in little ways. And so
we started rewarding people. If you would read the book
and write me two pages what you learn from the
book book report, I'll give you a hundred dollars. We've
had one young man in the Santa Monica restaurant read
(21:20):
all the books and took that money and he had
a cheap vacation, but he went to Europe and traveled
because you're in the money. So that's the start of it.
So we will to encourage people to ken you to learn.
At the book board that I wanted to turn it
as much as possible. We will figure out ways to
make this a school which which we introduce people to
new thoughts, new ways to live, things that will make
(21:41):
them better. So we become the next school. And I
think we can help society, which is in a mess today.
Maybe in our way, we're going to help make it better.
And so we're going to encourage it. Besides the charities,
we're going to encourage education that you learn, and we're
going to award some scholarships to children the people who
(22:01):
work for us. There will be great scholarships, but there'll
be scholarships to continue to learn. So we're encouraging continuing education.
It's a lot of people say I have a dream.
I was in a place here they said, dream and
keep dreaming your dream until that comes about nothing. You know,
that's not that doesn't work the way. Yeah, no, no not,
that's but people have dreams. And you know, I had
(22:24):
a dream of meeting Emulu errors they're meeting these people.
It happened, and how my richer my life is for it.
So we wanted to maybe take a couple of people.
You submit your dreams, and we'll sponsor you to do
your dream, and then you can go back and tell
you know what, I actually did it, that actually happened.
And when you achieve your dream, look how much richer
your life is. So then we encourage people to dream
(22:46):
big and accomplish it. And the third one is to
do good. You know, there's a lot of causes. I
know some people who they take groups to Guatemala and
dig water wells for the people. And so we will
sponsor people to go down and to do some of
these things that they can come back and tailorybody. You know,
I was in Guatemal. You think you think you have
it bad here, you know, And so together we can
(23:09):
maybe make the world a better place. And that's and
I think we can do that because we've over the
years of deal a lot of relationships, trust, hopefully people
respect us, and we have some clout to make this happen.
So that's that's my big one.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think that's a great goal for your next ninety years.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Ron. I just want to say I want to thank
you for being you know, acquaintance and sometimes friends. Over
the last fifteen years you have lunches with you and
getting to knowing you. You've definitely enriched my life, been
a mentor. So thank you for being on the show today.
(23:50):
I want to thank Ron Salasberry for joining us today
on locales only. I want to thank everyone on the
straw Hut Media team, including executive producer Ryan Tillotson and
editor and producer Parker Jay Hicks. And as always, a
big thank you to Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in Newport
Beach for providing this beautiful Mercedes Benz EQE to be
(24:13):
our rolling podcast studio. Join us next time on locales only,
where you can buckle up and go for a ride
in our mobile podcast studio with some of the coolest
people in Southern California.
Hello, Hey, Ron, It's Eric from Locals Only. How are
you hi, Eric? How are you hey? Good?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'll be pulling up in front of the cannery in
just about thirty seconds if you want to come out.
I'm in a white Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey. Welcome to Locals Only.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Eric Hale And if you don't know me, I'm
the guy that founded Local Magazine fourteen years ago in
my garage.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's been my job for all.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Those years to tell you the coolest places to eat
in all of southern California, fun things to do, so
you have date nights that aren't boring, and we've talked
to some really interesting people. Now we have a podcast,
and we're lucky enough to call this Mercedes Benz EQE
all electric sedan courtesy of Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in
Newport Beach. Our mobile podcasts do do. So sit back,
(00:44):
buckle up, and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Enjoy the conversation. Welcome to Local Zone.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Today, we're cruising down the Newport Beach Peninsula with Ron Salisbury.
Ron's family open del Solo one hundred years go and
he still owns that, plus the cannery and Louis on
the Bay and at ninety years old, he's opened up
two new restaurants just this year. Today, we're going to
talk about his love of baseball. We'll talk about the
history of his restaurants and how his letter writing campaign
(01:15):
got him to be friends with a lot of really
cool celebrities. So sit back, buckle up, and enjoy low Calzono.
We're with Ron Salisbury. Ron is the owner of quite
a few things. Elcholo restaurant chain, which has been around
(01:37):
for just over one hundred years now. We just picked
him up at the Cannery, which is here in Newport Beach.
He also has Louise and right across the bay and.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
The Cannery and the Cannery, and we just opened a
new restaurant called the Ilogato, which we had a restaurant
for forty one years up in Lahabra and it was
a fine dining restaurant and we kind of ran out
of the neighborhood change and in a medium price to
Italian restaurant that just opened. So then we're done. We're done.
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, you just opened also a restaurant in Utah too.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, that's seven months ago now.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
If a lot of our listeners don't know Ron just
you can't tell it by the way he looks. Celebrated
his ninetieth birthday a few months back, but you're still
opening a restaurant after restaurant. You might be one of
the few people that have opened two restaurants right around
your night birthday.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Would you say, well, I don't feel ninety and I
feel like life just goes on. This is what I've
always done. People say, why are you doing it? That's
what I've always done.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, maybe maybe we can just go back a little bit,
because I think you have a pretty interesting story. Not
too many people go back ninety years into the la
restaurant scene.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Your Elcholo restaurant was started by your parents.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Grandparents, My grandparents, My grandparents had the first one was
over by the La Call theme on two streets would
called Manita and Santa Barbara, which now is Broadway and
Martin Luther King. Okay, and then he goes back that
far you and then my four years into it, my
dad walked My mother was a server there. My dad
walked in, had lunch, met my mom, and they decided
(03:13):
because they were when my dad quit in the fifth grade,
because he was the sole money earner for his family
and his mother was a widow, and so they needed,
you know, the depression and they needed to do something
which you give them a good life and something they
could be proud of. And they opened their own alcholo
concurrently with my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's that's a long history there.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And the restaurant that they opened, it's it's close by,
it's right across the street from the original house.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, so one one on the way open on Western Avenue,
and they just went to a little storefront had the
three booths, wooden boost and an encounter and I was it.
And then the typical California bungalows, which is which was
what they were building in those days. One of those
came for sale across the street and my dad bought it,
and everybody told me, it's gets crazy because he's going
to spoil this great little restaurant. They had move and
(04:00):
the house was really you know, one of the one
of the dining rooms was the former living room, one
was the dining room, one was the kitchen, and then
there's two bedrooms in it and we had one bathroom
which had a tub in it. And so for many years,
the key story of the bathroom, which was became the
women's room had a bathtub in.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It, and so that's the same restaurant you can go
to today.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, my grand little different.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
My grandparents one my older my mother's older sister took
it over after my grandparents no longer could and then
she sold it nineteen fifty and it disappeared. So yeah,
right now we kind of say the original is the
one on the western still there?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
And where did that? Where did your grandparents' recipes come from?
Because my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That time and one hundred years ago in La I
think the sign out front even says Spanish food, correct,
because people had a negative connotation about mex Hispanic.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You're right if you you and you would not call
your food Mexicans perceived is not healthier saniter. So I'm
a reason today they have open kitchens. My dad had
an open kitchen so he could look in it for
that very reason, so we could see how clean and
well kept up it was. And the recipes go back
to my grandmother. And I feel refortunate because the old
typical story again, they were they were a young couple
(05:23):
that came from the territory of Arizona over dirt roads
in a car that probably traveled twenty miles an hour.
I can't picture how it was. And they came to
Los Angeles with the sole purpose of creating a little
business they could be proud of and they could give
them good living. And so then they arrived here and
my one night, my grandfather pushed back from the dinner
(05:46):
table and said, you're such a good cook, let's let's
just open a restaurant. And yeah, there's last words. But
my fortunate thing was she was a great cook, and
we stayed true to her their recipes all these years.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
What were some of your favorites that your grandma used
to make you?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, you know, back then, the menu was very simple
to either cheese, enchilava, chili, renal, tomali or renal. Yeah, taco,
I'm sorry. So yeah, And so the menu we now
created for a hundredth anversity, a really large plate that
puts those four items on there with beans and rice,
which is really the original menu we had all on
(06:26):
one plate. We call it taste the history.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, and then you you've taken that one location in
your generation, and you've paid multiple locations. So let's let's
move away from the restaurants a little bit. We can
come back and maybe talk about the cannery. Sure, that's
a really interesting story as well, But let's talk about
you a little bit. I think we know each other personally,
and one of the things that I find really endearing
(06:50):
about you and some of the relationships that you've made
over the years with people that you admired. Maybe tell
us a little bit about how you started reaching out
to these people that you admire and some of those
people that you've made contact with.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, first of all, there's so many people come in
the restaurant. It afforded me i'd to get to know
I get to know people from all walks of life,
all interesting things, and that alone has provided me some wonderful,
wonderful friends and wonderful experiences. The other one I reached
out When you have a restaurant, it's kind of easier
to reach out to people because they identify the restaurant.
(07:24):
Ray Bradbury was a someone I had really respected from
a long distance and wrote to him one time and said, yeah,
and I saw he had he'd spoken in downtown LA
and there was a bunda saying where all these great
minds came together. The only one I remember was his talk,
because he talked about what he called the yellow brick
Road to revitalize downtown, where you leave your work and
(07:45):
you follow the yellow brick road, just hit this place.
Then you'd have cocktails in here, and then you moved
to the bookstore. And then you know, he had a
great imagination and great vision. And I so enjoyed his talk.
I wrote to him. I said, I'd like to have
dinner with you and just get to hear more about it.
Then out of that came a really deep friendship. And
he would write poetry and you send it to me,
(08:05):
what do you think?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And I just started with a letter. So just a letter, kids,
if you're listening.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A letter is like something you write on paper with
a pin or a pencil if you haven't seen orcles
in the post office box.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And he wrote back exactly, and I you know, I mean,
if you do that, you don't expect to hear back, right,
So you expect to On the flip side, you might
just make a connection. You might even have an incredible
experience one time with something like that, or if the
game grows into a lifelong friendship, so you have nothing
(08:36):
to lose and everything to gain. I tell people about this.
I say, who would you like to meet? They'll give
me the name. I'll say, write them a letter. They
never do. I've never had one person till may do it.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Let's go into your love of baseball.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So if you haven't been in too, let's say the
Cannery in the Newport Beach definitely should go.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
It's one of our favorite restaurants. Thank you, my wife
and I.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's close to our house. But you have a kind
of a mini hall of fame, hall of fame just
in your love. You have check signed by I think
be Roope. Do you have lots of bulk Tycob Tykob
sorry lots and ye, just great artifacts in this museum.
And you started doing this hot stumer well around the
(09:20):
baseball season when they're doing all the trades. And how
did that come about?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, I thought, I thought, the Canry is going to
be my last restaurant. I was sixteen, nine years old,
and now again by itself is an amazing story how
they came out. But so you had this seafood restaurant,
and I thought, since it's the last restaurant, how can
I kind of weave the baseball into it? And then
I thought in the old Man in the sea. When
the old Man is coming back and the sharks have
(09:46):
devoured his great catch, he says to himself, I must think,
because that's all I have left, which is a great lion,
and then says that in baseball, Yeah, not many people
had caught that dead. Thought, oh, that's my opening Old
Man c baseball. So we put that over the host desk,
and then I thought, my wife gave me a few
(10:06):
years back as signed check by Ty Cobb. I thought, well,
let me start collecting it because the restaurant is not
about current athletes and who are there. That restaurant is
about the greatest that ever lived the tradition and the
greatest that ever played the game. And I thought that
represents hopefully what that restaurant can become. So I started
(10:28):
collecting other pictures, memorabilia and putting them up in the
in the room.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Now, let's get around to the cannery, because I think
there's a.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Lot of people that might listen to this that have
eaten at the cannery, but probably a lot of people
don't know its history.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Right. I live on the hill just there in Newports.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You can almost see the cannery from where I live,
but there's a whole story in a backstore. It was
a working cannery for a long time, and actually the
neighborhood I lived in housed a lot of workers, right right,
Maybe tell me the story a little bit about the Canary, Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Well, as you point out, in nineteen twenty two, it
was a canary along with many other canories back there
in the bay. Nineteen seventy two, very enterprising gentlemen gathered
some friends together and they said, let's build a restaurant
in this canary building. And it became the Cannery and
was from nineteen seventy two to nineteen ninety nine. It
(11:21):
was a kind of a classic restaurant on the Bay
and really had created a restaurant created by memories. Nineteen
ninety nine they sold the property and it was going
to be torn down and developed into just this is
one of my greatest stories ever. I loved telling. It
is being torn down and developed into condominiums, just like
(11:43):
everything else around there. And a man I did not
know the time, he developed Bare Paints bhr. He never
ate in the cannery, but he said, you know, I
can't stay my neighborhood losing an iconic landmark restaurant. So
he went out and paid three three times it was
worth to save it. And I met Jack and Jack said,
(12:05):
I'll give you whatever money takes a bit to put
it together. I thought, well why not? And you know,
I went from el chola, which I say, are they're
like soloists having to play their instrument to perfection, to
a restaurant, which is like a symphony orchestra. It's complicating, complex,
but it gave me, at the age of sixty nine,
a renewed opportunity to learn new things, fresh new things,
(12:28):
make some mistakes, and grow and meet new people. So
it was It's been amazing in my life. So anyway,
Jack gave us, well, he gave us eight hundred thousand
dollars and it wasn't enough because the restaurant was really
in bad, bad shape. So a little bit and Jacket
only met me half a dozen times. We're walking through
and Dan he says, oh, this has to be costing
(12:48):
you more of the money I gave you. And I said, well, Jack,
yes it is. Hopefully. He pulls that check book out
of his pocket. Who cares? Check what? He writes me
a check for five hundred thousand dollars I knew it
was for.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And this is also, I mean, this is twenty years ago.
These numbers were talking about bigger. But he was really
so dedicated to having his community keep that restaurant.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
But he didn't really know me. That's the thing. He
didn't know me, and so he's right. And he said,
I said, what's this for? It I knew it was for.
He said, you need more money. Here it is Jack,
We can't take it. We have a deal. He said,
I insist you take it. I said, you insists will
take it. I said, but we're raising money through investors.
Oh do you have some room left investors? Yes? Yes,
(13:32):
and he says, can I have seven hundred thousand dollars
of that? Oh my god. So in the space of
sixty seconds, the man gives me one point two million
dollars to a person he didn't really know who. In
most in the restaurant business, you know, most restaurants don't
last very long, and more likelihood, this restaurant's going to
be out of business in a few years. He's trusted
me that kind of money. But Jack has an amazing
(13:54):
insight one a side. I asked it one time, how
did you run a company as big as bear. He said.
I simply told everybody when they company with a situation,
I said, you know what, just do the right thing.
I said, That's all he told him. He said, and
then you have to go back and think what is
the right thing. And he says the company ran smoothly.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
And he said, it's such simple advice and great advice
for business owners to maybe not be so exact, maybe
not be so involved, but say do the right.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Thing and involved the person they owned it. They grew
from doing it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
It was.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That's why he's such a great person.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And but now I have to say he wasn't just
giving the money to anybody that he had just met. No,
you had about fifty years experience running in restaurants.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
He had. He had a good feeling about you too.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
But there's people give me a million and a half
and I'm in Argentina, you.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Know, oh right, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And so anyway, on the other side, we're sitting in
the attorney's office and the attorney says, Jack, you need
this in the lease. And Jack turns to me and says,
if that's in the least is to make it harder
for you to operate. I said, well, the course it does,
then I don't want it in the least, So you
get you get the picture. And he was just it's
(15:08):
an incredible story. I'm incredibly blessed to have this half
of my life. It changed my life. It introduced me,
made me feel more a part of the community. It
introduced me all these wonderful people that I never would
have met if the restaurant wasn't there. It was just,
I'm the luckiest guy.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean, we're just going through. You've got to meet
your idols. You've had this restaurant, you've had this longevity
of life, and and you've also got to do things
that make you really happy and successful.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I mean, those are all testaments to it a life
well lived. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
A couple of other toss in. David Halberstam was an
author Peel, the surprize winning author has written some great
his three books, and I was just enthralled with his rioting.
Because some people you read, you can skip. I couldn't skip.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I had to hang on everywhere when he writes, wrote
him for five years ago, never heard from him. All
of a sudden, I'm in the hospital with bleeding ulcers,
and he calls the office of this He said, Ron
had been trying to get hold me for five years
to have dinner. I'm in town. Is he still interested?
And they called me and said I said, I'm leaving
the hospital. And so we sat at the in the
patio at the cannery one night and I just said
(16:15):
I didn't talk much. I just listened. But I hear
on a chance to spend an evening with David telling
anybody who's a war correspondent, telling all his brilliant guy.
I got to meet him. We were starting to develop
a friendship, and he was t boned in an intersection
when Timon killed shortly after.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Did that spur you to write your book?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Because I know no book about the everything they.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Didn't teach you at the CLO. But that's kind of
a fun title.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Right, yeah, son? But I wrote the book because I
just thought, you know, as you can tell, I like
to tell stories. I've got some stories I love to tell,
and so I just put him into a book.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And that's now the CIA.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And for those of you guys that are listening, uh,
it's not for the CI, it's for the Culinary Institute,
right and knowing wrong for a long time, I would
say maybe fifteen years ago, Ron and I went on
a drive and we were talking restaurants, and I was
a lot younger than and I was chipping in with
all these ideas as I normally do. And it was
(17:12):
the first time I think I had a conversation with
somebody just because of your years of wisdom, where every
idea throughout you said, I tried that, already tried that,
did I really? But but it was I think it
was humbling to me in a certain extent, but it
was also good to see what wisdom was, right. It's
it's that accumulation of knowledge is not just being smart's
(17:34):
common sense learn lessons, and common sense comes from probably
learning lessons in good ways and bad ways.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Right, So that's all the book is just a bunch
of whole common sense ideas that make you think too differently.
It's printans. I got healed up one time and the
guy had a gun in my head and he needs
to take me to the safe. And all I could
think of was I wish I had a second safe,
because because if I had a second safe, I would
put the real money in the second safe. I would
have token money in the first one because nobody said
(18:00):
is now that we've open your first safe, let's about
the second. Save it just it'sbuch a witty you know,
or things how to operate the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And I about to recommend to anybody that's looking at
getting in the restaurant business. Also probably get a psychiatric
evaluation now if you're looking to get into it. But
I had a lot of fun really funny read you
can you can get that book. So we're about to
the end of our ride here. But maybe you know,
maybe talk about.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
At ninety right. You know, you've accomplished a lot.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I've had a great life.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
What else do you want to accomplish? What is what?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And it might not be a thing, but what else
is there left for you to do that you're really
excited about? To get you up every morning because you
guys can see him on camera, run gets up, he's
driving around in his nice car, he's at his restaurant,
he's working. I mean sometimes long shifts like what's that
motivational factor?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What are you still trying to?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Well? I think we had the one hundred anniversary for
the restaurant, and I always get up in the morning
thinking what am I going to deal with today and
whether it's tomorrow mean. And I never looked back and appreciated.
So one of the most frequently asked questions at our
Hanso is looking back what you see and enjoy. And
I looked back and I started, Oh, my gosh, there's
so much richness here. In the stories, we have to
(19:18):
tell what this restaurant it means to people. I've had
the restaurant in Saltlake. We opened, and I had people
gripping my hands crying because they moved to Utah, thought
they'd never go to Elholo again, and now El shows
there and it's a very emotion. We've had five generations
eating with us in the stories. I spent the first
three weeks just going from table to table having people
(19:39):
look at me and tell me how much the restaurant
meant to them. Was just a restaurant, it was part
of their life. And so I realized that with this
we really we really created something. So let just try
and use that to do something even more so it's
a little complicated. We dedicated to raise a million dollars
pediatric cancer research, and one things we did was they'll
(20:00):
naming rights perman naming bites and brass plaque to some
of my iconic boosts. We've done other things we had fundraised,
but anyway, so then I thought, I think we should
now not only just be happy to do this for
one year from now on our second hundred years, we're
going to take a h arity or a cause every
year and we will name it, will dedicating to help
(20:22):
that cause through raising money for it and bringing awareness
to it. So we can do that is because we
know people believe in us. It's more more than just
a restaurant. I want to turn the restaurant into a
second a next school, because I think people graduate from school,
they get a job, and now it's just I'll do
(20:42):
the job, here's your paycheck, and we go home. And
I've seen the opportunity to work with younger people or
people that we can teach them. This is their next school.
I view it. We're in the next school, and I
want to do everything we can to turn this next school.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We have.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
We started a few years ago. I like to read
a lot, and I like to read a lot of
books that I feel are helpful for you to read.
We'll really change your life in little ways. And so
we started rewarding people. If you would read the book
and write me two pages what you learn from the
book book report, I'll give you a hundred dollars. We've
had one young man in the Santa Monica restaurant read
(21:20):
all the books and took that money and he had
a cheap vacation, but he went to Europe and traveled
because you're in the money. So that's the start of it.
So we will to encourage people to ken you to learn.
At the book board that I wanted to turn it
as much as possible. We will figure out ways to
make this a school which which we introduce people to
new thoughts, new ways to live, things that will make
(21:41):
them better. So we become the next school. And I
think we can help society, which is in a mess today.
Maybe in our way, we're going to help make it better.
And so we're going to encourage it. Besides the charities,
we're going to encourage education that you learn, and we're
going to award some scholarships to children the people who
(22:01):
work for us. There will be great scholarships, but there'll
be scholarships to continue to learn. So we're encouraging continuing education.
It's a lot of people say I have a dream.
I was in a place here they said, dream and
keep dreaming your dream until that comes about nothing. You know,
that's not that doesn't work the way. Yeah, no, no not,
that's but people have dreams. And you know, I had
(22:24):
a dream of meeting Emulu errors they're meeting these people.
It happened, and how my richer my life is for it.
So we wanted to maybe take a couple of people.
You submit your dreams, and we'll sponsor you to do
your dream, and then you can go back and tell
you know what, I actually did it, that actually happened.
And when you achieve your dream, look how much richer
your life is. So then we encourage people to dream
(22:46):
big and accomplish it. And the third one is to
do good. You know, there's a lot of causes. I
know some people who they take groups to Guatemala and
dig water wells for the people. And so we will
sponsor people to go down and to do some of
these things that they can come back and tailorybody. You know,
I was in Guatemal. You think you think you have
it bad here, you know, And so together we can
(23:09):
maybe make the world a better place. And that's and
I think we can do that because we've over the
years of deal a lot of relationships, trust, hopefully people
respect us, and we have some clout to make this happen.
So that's that's my big one.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think that's a great goal for your next ninety years.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Ron. I just want to say I want to thank
you for being you know, acquaintance and sometimes friends. Over
the last fifteen years you have lunches with you and
getting to knowing you. You've definitely enriched my life, been
a mentor. So thank you for being on the show today.
(23:50):
I want to thank Ron Salasberry for joining us today
on locales only. I want to thank everyone on the
straw Hut Media team, including executive producer Ryan Tillotson and
editor and producer Parker Jay Hicks. And as always, a
big thank you to Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in Newport
Beach for providing this beautiful Mercedes Benz EQE to be
(24:13):
our rolling podcast studio. Join us next time on locales only,
where you can buckle up and go for a ride
in our mobile podcast studio with some of the coolest
people in Southern California.
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