A Lingering Memory Uncovers a Forgotten Favorite

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Kenneth and Florence Nichols in front of their Mexican restaurant in 1956. She greeted customers for three decades, until its closure in 1988.

If you lived in Laguna Beach between the early 1960s and the late ‘80s, chances are good that you patronized La Paz, one of the few restaurants outside of downtown.

Though gone from the scene for more than two decades, nostalgic recollections by loyal La Paz customers are surprisingly easy to find. We turned them up as a result of a recent inquiry from former resident Steve Buchanan, a 1964 Laguna Beach High School graduate. He wanted to track down the restaurant’s famous blue cheese salad dressing.

In its heyday, when La Paz closed for the help’s annual vacation, “you marked off the days on the calendar until they opened again,” said resident Cathy Hallinan, who regularly frequented the landmark Mexican eatery in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. She fondly recalled making daily treks from Oak Street beach up to the restaurant’s popular back door, where surfers and sun worshipers lined up still sandy footed in trunks and swimming suits to get the combo plate of beans, rice and cheese.

The take-out door opened on a narrow corridor between La Paz and the building next door. Patrons awaiting their paper plate passed the time writing their names, drawing hearts, and recording surfing feats on the wall, said Hallinan.

Usually, they’d bring their foil-covered paper plates back to the beach, but sometimes they’d lean against the sun-drenched wall of the tiny deck to finish off their affordable and satisfying meal. Prices ranged from 35 cents to $1.25 between the early ‘60s and late ‘70s.

Buchanan and his friends would walk up from their hangout at Wood’s Cove and eat their combo plates on the walk back.

The back-door Laguna ritual was born of expediency since kids coming from the beach used to track tar all over the floor inside, owner Florence Nichols told the Laguna News-Post in 1988. In an earlier article, reporter Len Hall wrote that the back door window had a particular following in the ‘60s “when it became a haven for long haired, barefooted hippies who weren’t welcome elsewhere.”

Beachgoers flocked to La Paz, a tradition that continues in the same building now occupied by Wahoos.

The ever-genteel owner-hostess greeted those who ventured inside the tiny establishment for a sit down meal. They dined on dishes devised by her husband with the help of the cook to replicate memorable meals from restaurants such as Mexico City’s Sanborn’s.

Hence, the inspiration behind La Paz’s much-praised Sanborn’s enchilada. “My dad just sort of copied the ingredients,” of dishes he liked, said Holly Pettit, the Nichols’ daughter, who still lives in Laguna.

Her father hired Laguna native Donny Crevier in his first job as a dishwasher. “It was perfect for my lifestyle in those days,” said Crevier, who surfed all day and then showed up at work, where employees could eat before starting their shift. The former owner of Santa Ana’s Crevier BMW recalled fibbing about his age to get hired since he was only 13. What’s more, at $1.25 an hour, he was able to save enough to buy his school clothes for the upcoming year.

Even when his dishwashing days were over, Crevier ate at La Paz until it closed. He’s still hooked on La Paz’s salsa, which he says is the basis of the brand O-Roy-O made by another local resident and sold in Laguna Beach markets.

 “Everything was made fresh,” recalled Pettit, who worked mornings in the restaurant’s kitchen during summer vacation and remembers stripping whole cooked chickens to make tacos. Other favorites included, chile rellenos, salsa, and the salad dressing Buchanan inquired about, which had quite a following.

She mixed the blue cheese dressing in six-gallon batches, a recipe difficult to reproduce since it involved bulk ingredients. She started with a large round of Roquefort cut into six pieces, one for each gallon, and added the other ingredients measured in paper condiment cups.

After Buchanan left Laguna to settle in Diamond Bar, he returned to La Paz with his daughters several times each summer until it closed. Instead of frequenting the back door, he sat inside with his family where he developed a craving for the salad dressing.

When the restaurant finally closed, the dressing recipe was posted on the door, according to Buchanan, but he was away on business and missed it.

While many locals dined inside La Paz, sandy surfers and sun bathers picked up orders from a window in the alley.

La Paz sprang from Kenneth Nichols’ desire for a career shift, leaving Houston and his engineering career to open a Mexican restaurant in California. He and his family stopped in Laguna to see friends en route to Palo Alto. They liked Laguna better and returned to initially buy The Flats, a Mexican restaurant where Albertson’s is now located. Within a year, they purchased the property in the 1100 block of S. Coast Highway, a former architect’s office, for $17,500 in 1956. It’s now occupied by Wahoo’s.

La Paz was so successful Nichols opened others in Orange and Fullerton. When he died as a result of a heart attack in 1967, his wife kept only the Laguna location going.

From the very first employee, cook Theresa Frias, the staff became like family. When La Paz closed in 1988, Frias had worked there for its entire 32-year run, head waiter-manager Louis Villalobos was there for 31 years, and cook Augustin Reyes and his wife had put in 17 years.

Dispersal of the “family” due to retirements and relocations led to the restaurant’s closure. Pettit said her mother didn’t want to train a new crew and decided to close up shop. Pettit, who runs a Montessori preschool, wasn’t interested in taking the reins.

“Everyone in this town had withdrawal when they closed,” said Hallinan, who still can summon the memory of leaning on the sun-warmed wall in her bikini and warm corn tortillas wrapped in wax paper and dripping in butter.

 

Theresa Frias’ salsa, as printed in the Oct. 13, 1988, edition of the Laguna News-Post:

Ingredients: About a pound of little yellow and jalapeno chiles, fresh, with stems removed; two cloves fresh garlic; handful chopped white onions; two large pinches of oregano; number two can of tomatoes, one cup tarragon vinegar; three-four tablespoons of salt.

Put vinegar, garlic, onions, oregano and salt in a blender and run until ground up and mushy. Then fill blender with jalapeno chiles. Blend on and off to chop them up. Run until blended and put in gallon-size jar.

Fill blender with yellow chiles. Add small amount of water and blend. Add to gallon jar.

Fill blender with tomatoes. Blend tomatoes slowly (start and turn off several times). Add tomatoes to jar and stir together.

 

Hallinan’s blue cheese recipe, as it was given to her:

¾ cup tarragon vinegar

¾ cup salad vinegar

1 tablespoon mustard

1 egg

1 teaspoon basil

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon pepper

1 tablespoon salt

½ lemon

¾ pound blue cheese

2 gallons mayo

 

(Note that Pettit doesn’t recall the dressing having any tarragon vinegar, just regular vinegar, though perhaps the recipe was tweaked after she stopped making it. She said the recipe she knew also included salad oil. Questioned on whether the 2 gallons of mayo is excessive relative to the other ingredients in this recipe, Pettit said it was possible, but she couldn’t say for certain, since this recipe was recorded by someone else, and since her personal experience was making giant batches not suited for home consumption.)

Photos courtesy of Holly Pettit

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks so much for the La Paz article. I survived two years at Laguna Beach School of Art & Design (1964-1966) by living on the ‘Bean Plate special’. Not to mention my surfing years at Brooks Street and the barefoot waltz up the hill for a filling and affordable meal.

  2. I dishwashed & served the ‘back door’ in the mid sixties along with locals Steve Michelson and Steve Neptune. Cook was Meredith Lightfoot from (if I remember right) New Orleans and made the famous ‘Sanborn’ enchilada. I think Javier was waiter there, went to Tortilla Flats, got financial backing and started his own famous restaurants. We Surfed Oak & Thalia all day and worked at La Paz. I remember being really sunburned and working in the hot kitchen. Fun Times/Great Food.

  3. I loved finding a story about the back door at La Paz, where I lived off of the ‘Back Door Special’. It was a simple plate of rice, beans, chips, sour cream, guac, chips and their signature salsa. I have tried endlessly to repeat it but never hit the taste I remember. Is there a copy of their old menu hiding someplace? I would love to try to recreate some of those dishes at home.

  4. I still have withdrawal pains from La Paz Restaurant closing. Not only were the Enchiladas out of this world but the Chicken Tacos and the Guacamole dip were outstanding.
    We use to get the Combination Plate of Beans/Cheese, Rice, Sauce and order of Tortillas. A Super Combo had the same ingredients with Chorizo Sauce applied on top.
    This was the finest restaurant known to man. Mrs. Nichols was also a real sweet person…kind to all!

  5. I’m with you Bryant I’m sure a lot of our friends remember and feel the same way about that back door special.
    There was another place called the outrigger.
    My sister sounded out the name of a drink out loud.
    “What’s a SUFFERING BASTARD ”
    Everyone who heard that got a real good laugh.

  6. What memories this brought back to me! I lived in Laguna and graduated in 1964 from LBHS.I lived a few houses down from the Nichols, and Heather was my best friend. We spent so many great times at the beach and grabbing that wonderful back door plate! I was just telling my granddaughter about my memories of LA Paz yesterday, and this article is a treasure…thank you!

  7. Any chance someone knows and would be willing to share the recipe for the Sanborn enchilada? My family fondly remembers La Paz and the Sanborn, and would love to try to re-create it at home. Many thanks!

  8. I remember the La Paz quite well in fact all three of them. My mother took their when I was a little boy, to see my Grandma Trudy Nichols who worked at the La Paz in Orange. Brings back memories

  9. My wife and I dined at La Paz on our honeymoon in May 1967. It was our favorite restaurant in Laguna Beach.
    In early February 1969 I arrived home from Vietnam. La Paz was my first meal back in America. Louis commented on not seeing us in so long . . . when he found out I had just arrived home he was excited and said Welcome Home.

  10. Holly, your mom hired me as a busboy on Friday and Sunday nights . . . my friend got the Saturday slot ( for one night ) . . . when I showed up Sunday afternoon, your mom ( Mrs. Nichols ) asked if I could work Saturday nights too . . . my friend was not much of a worker (grins) . . . My parents loved your parent’s restaurant, the salsa, Luis and Meredith . . .

  11. Hi, Stan . . . were you dating Holly Ware during this time? I also appreciate your mentioning Meredith Lightfoot and Steve Michelson . . . I believe you, Steve and I surfed San Onofre thanks to my mom’s driving . . . con una sonrisa

  12. Tony, you are correct-great memory. Yes, I was dating Holly. Her parents owned a motel across the street and Holly’s mom was the manager of the early Sawdust Festival. Surfing Sano was great.. So if you’re Mom was driving us to go surfing we must have been 14 or 15 years old??

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