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What to do with Rufus?

Jorge Mastache feeds a carrot to Rufus, a 37-year-old pacu fish who lives in one of dozens of tanks inside the long-closed Bahooka restaurant. The new owners are eager to remodel the iconic tiki restaurant, but they haven't decided the fate of Rufus and hundreds of other aquatic creatures being maintained in the darkened establishment.

Jorge Mastache feeds a carrot to Rufus, a 37-year-old pacu fish who lives in one of dozens of tanks inside the long-closed Bahooka restaurant. The new owners are eager to remodel the iconic tiki restaurant, but they haven’t decided the fate of Rufus and hundreds of other aquatic creatures being maintained in the darkened establishment.  (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Rufus the carrot-munching pacu fish was a celebrity at Bahooka tiki restaurant in Rosemead. He’s 37 now; his fins are fraying and his face is scarred. The restaurant closed in March, and its owners aren’t sure what will become of Rufus and the other aquatic creatures that are being maintained in the darkened establishment. “Rufus is an icon. Everybody knows him,” said the founder of a group that has helped raise money for his move. “And for people who live in the San Gabriel Valley, Rufus is like their childhood.”

Like an old shipwreck

Overgrown palm trees encircle Bahooka, which hasn’t aged well. Like the rusted boats in the parking lot, the restaurant has lost its seaworthiness.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Ditching the gravel

Charles Danesky clears discarded aquarium gravel from the parking lot outside Bahooka. Rufus the fish, who has watched many of the restaurant’s diners grow up, probably wouldn’t survive a relocation.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

A fixture of a fish

Bahooka’s current owners have expressed surprise that a fish could arouse such passions. But to many, Rufus is the only living reminder of a place that children once loved more than Chuck E. Cheese.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Empty aquariums

Empty aquariums and stands fill up the banquet hall inside Bahooka, an iconic Tiki restaurant that has been closed since March.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Needing a new home

Fish are for sale in one of the dozens of functioning aquariums being maintained in the long-closed Bahooka, which opened in 1967.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Done for the day

Jorge Machada locks the back door of Bahooka after cleaning aquariums and feeding the fish. Mastache says his main concern with a move is that Rufus will not survive. He admitted he would miss his companion of 13 years.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Right this way

The entry bar greets ghosts at Bahooka, which looked like the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland -- but a darker, seedier version that the Pirates of the Caribbean might have hung out in after a shift.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

A restaurant's chains

A chain holds up a table in one of the dozens of booths inside Bahooka. Cofounder Darlene Fliegel said the restaurant closed because no one had the time to run it anymore. When it was sold, she said, everyone assumed Rufus would have a home.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

A long life in the tank

Rufus is no aggressive hunter cutting through the water -- just an old fish heaving himself across an 8-foot-long tank, scouting for floating carrots with unblinking eyes. At 37, he has lived roughly twice as long as he would have in the wild.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Empty booths

When Bahooka closed, everyone assumed the new owner would integrate Rufus and the other fish into a new tiki restaurant. But the property has changed hands twice since Bahooka was shuttered.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

A light touch

A jail cell is featured in the dining area inside Bahooka. For decades, the restaurant drew crowds with an incredible aquatic menagerie of more than 1,000 creatures -- so many it was as if you were eating underwater.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

An aquatic menagerie

For nearly a year now, Rufus and the other aquatic creatures have been living in the abandoned restaurant, a dim warren of dark scarred wood and burbling water.   (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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