The Joint by the Side of the Road : Roadhouses Still Beckon in the Boonies

In a county that has one of the busiest airports in the world, one of the wealthiest yacht basins, two of the most famous amusement parks and a fair number of the trendiest restaurants, the roadhouse in the boondocks could be as anachronistic as the 25-cent burger.

But Orange County has its share of inviting boondocks where, deep in the outback without a McDonald’s for miles, can be found several aging but healthy examples of the institution known to many as simply the Joint by the Side of the Road.

Perhaps the prime example of the form is Cook’s Corner, at the junction of El Toro Road and Live Oak Canyon Road. It looks like nothing fancier than a barracks--because that is what it once was. In 1946, Jack Cook, a local entrepreneur, bought the barracks from what is now the Marine Air Corps Station in nearby El Toro and had it moved, in two pieces, to its present spot, said Jack Fuller, a 45-year resident of neighboring Trabuco Canyon.

“This place has been here when this road was pert near a wagon trail,” said Fuller. “And it’s hardly been dusted off since then. That’s no joke.”

As a roadhouse, Cook’s Corner looks the part. It is a low and long shoebox of a building, with neon beer signs in the window. A large sign on the roof advertises Excelsior dairy products and includes an addendum that says children are welcome--a rattling contrast to the warning posted on the door: “No firearms allowed.”

The structure is surrounded by tall trees, and there are wooden picnic tables outside.

Inside, the place is basic but not unadorned. Behind the ancient wooden bar are fading snapshots, posted scraps of dime store wisdom, a vast array of snacks, a collection of gimcracks and a stern and complete list of IDs--such as school identification, draft cards and birth certificates--that will not be honored.

There are two small pool tables in one end of the room and banquettes on one wall. The jukebox runs heavily to country music and the kitchen, said Lois Keener, one of the bartenders, runs heavily to chili ($1.10 for a small bowl, $1.50 for a large, and the popular chili size is $3.20).

A sign at the kitchen window announces the philosophy of the cooks: “This is not Burger King. You don’t get your way. You take it my way or you don’t get the son of a bitch.”

The clientele during the week, said Cheryl Bonner, another bartender, is made up of nearby residents and people who work in the area.

“On Sunday, though, we get an awful lot of bikers through here,” said Bonner. “One of their clubs will be out together on a ride, and this’ll be one of their stops.”

The Cook family still owns the land, said Bonner, although the business has “gone through a bunch of lessees.” And, she added, it continues to be a landmark for travelers in the Orange County outback.

“A lot of people know where it is,” she said. “But we still get people who walk in and say, ‘Hey, where’s Cook’s Corner?’ ”

A few miles north of Cook’s Corner is the Pali Cafe, in Silverado Canyon. A small, bright, cottage-like building on the south side of Silverado Canyon Road in the canyon’s tiny business district, the cafe’s original owner was a Hawaiian man who decided to give it a Hawaiian name, said Froda Brotemarkle, the current owner.

‘Here for About 40 Years’

“Everybody who’s owned it since has just decided to keep the name,” she said. “It’s been here for about 40 years, and with all the flooding and what not, it’s held up pretty well.”

The dining area is divided into two sections, one containing a pool table and banquettes, the other a small counter and pink, square-topped stools. Beer is served, but breakfast is the big meal, said Brotemarkle.

“It’s just go, go, go for breakfast,” she said. “People come from all over. We have one man who comes in every week from Santa Ana with his dog. We get worried if we don’t see him.”

The atmosphere is casual, and customers often entertain themselves, said Brotemarkle.

“People bring in board games sometimes and sit here for hours playing,” she said. “No one pushes them out. It’s relaxed. And some of the customers will serve their own coffee before the waitress gets here in the morning. One even wrote his own bill. It’s a real help-yourself place.”

Specialties: chili with cheese and onions ($2.35), homemade pies ($1.10 a slice), and “thick shakes and malts like you get in New York” ($1.50).

Esquire Rating Two similar roadside stands share a nearly untouched stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, above Crystal Cove in Laguna Beach. One of them is the Orange Inn, which Esquire magazine once rated one of the 10 best roadside stands in the country, said John Bodrero, the current owner.

The inn, painted an unmistakable bright green and orange, has served up fresh hand-squeezed orange juice and date shakes since 1931 to travelers, surfers, beachgoers, locals and celebrities.

Originally a wooden shack, the inn now has an outdoor patio area and a shed structure, both built by Bodrero, who was operated the business for the last 11 years. He says he is always mindful that he runs a little piece of local history.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I was a high school dropout and kind of a hippie type when I bought it, and I figured it would be kind of like college for me. I’d been working for the owner before and squeezing orange juice for $2.25 an hour, and one day he asked me if I wanted to buy it.

“I was 22 and I didn’t have a penny at the time and I was living out of the back of my truck, but my dad co-signed on a loan with me. Since then, it’s just been incredible.”

The Orange Inn serves sandwiches and a variety of nuts, as well as its trademark orange juice (75 cents to $1.50) and date shakes ($2.25). Inside, there is a tiny, wooden counter, a green concrete floor and a surfboard in the rafters. Paper plates autographed by several sports celebrities who have been customers hang on the wall just inside the front door. The aroma of citrus is strong.

Land Barely Changed

Outside, on the southern wall, is a fading painting of the inn and the surrounding land as it looked decades ago. The land has barely changed. Cows still graze only a few yards behind the building.

Regular customers include Wilt Chamberlain, Reggie Jackson, Harriet Nelson and Bill Walton, who, said Bodrero, rides his bicycle to the inn and always orders two date shakes.

“The place is really special to me, but I’m operating without a lease right now,” said Bodrero. “The Irvine Co. owns this land, and they say they’re going to develop it, so I might have only another year or two here. I wish I could save it, because I’m really concerned with preserving it. And a lot of the customers are real, true-blue loyalists. They’d fight for the Orange Inn.”

Less than a mile south of the Orange Inn, on the opposite side of the highway, is Sunshine Cove, a stand that serves what the owner, Virginia McKinney, says is a not-incompatible combination of health food and hamburgers with all the trimmings.

“The structure goes back to the early ‘30s,” said McKinney, 62, “and it always sold dates and nuts and other dried fruits. It used to be called the Date Shack, and we still sell mostly date shakes. But we have a lot of sandwiches and other things now, too.”

Some of the other items are jelly beans in bags, carrot juice, New Zealand nectarine shakes and bottles of tanning oil.

The array of shake flavors is huge, with prices ranging from $1.85 for plain vanilla to $2.50 for the more exotic fresh-fruit varieties such as peach, pineapple and papaya.

The stand is mostly corrugated aluminum painted bright orange and yellow. Next to it is a wooden deck with benches and a table, with a spectacular view of Crystal Cove. Customers are frequent and, said McKinney, return business is brisk.

“I love it here,” said McKinney, who previously owned a health food store in Laguna Beach. “There’s a need for good food, which I produce, and I meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends here.

Sunshine Cove, she said, may be yet another casualty along that small stretch of undeveloped coastline.

“I’ve got a non-renewable, five-year lease from the state,” she said. “The state owns the land, and after five years I may have to get in line with everyone else for this place.

“But I make a little money here, and it motivates me. I’m not the kind to retire.”

Turn-Away Crowds

The Trabuco Oaks Steak House might be called a roadhouse that grew up to be a restaurant. Once a small roadside snack bar hard by O’Neill Regional Park, the steak house now serves massive cuts of sirloin to turn-away crowds.

It was nothing more than a soda pop stand when Eleanor Sherod, her husband and son took over in 1967, after giving up their snack bar in a Santa Ana mobile home park.

“We wanted something different and out of the way,” said Eleanor Sherod. “And, little by little, we just kept adding on to the place. And, in about 1975, it had gotten to the point where the steak house just sort of took over from the snack bar.”

It would be easy to miss the steak house, just off Live Oak Canyon Road. Outside, it resembles nothing so much as a large garden shack. Inside, however, one of the reasons for its fame--or infamy--is obvious.

Hanging from every exposed rafter, wall, partition and counter are what were once neckties. There is a strict no-tie rule at Trabuco Oaks, and violators have their cravats removed with a scissors.

Inflexible Rule

The dress rule is inflexible. A display case near the door features prominent photos of former President Richard Nixon and his friend, Bebe Rebozo, having their ties sliced in two in 1978

“I had about two weeks’ warning that Nixon was coming, but I didn’t believe it until he showed up,” said Sherod. “There were a lot of Secret Service men around to make sure about what I was going to cut.”

Only one customer has strenuously objected to the no-tie edict, said Sherod.

“There was one man here with a church group and we found out he was the type who dresses up from morning until night, every day. He said he’d take his pants off before he’d take off his tie, and said if he couldn’t wear his tie he was going to sit in the car while his friends had dinner. He sat in the car.”

Wherever there are no necktie remnants in the steak house, there are business cards--thousands of them. (All of them, and the ties, must be sprayed with fire retardant to comply with safety regulations, said Sherod.)

Sherod admits to borrowing the tie-clipping idea from the original Pinnacle Peak steak house, near Scottsdale, Ariz.

Two-Pound Steaks

Another practice similar to Pinnacle Peak, said Sherod, is the availability of huge steaks. The largest on the menu, called the Cowboy, weighs a full two pounds and costs $23.75. Smaller cuts are $12.95 for a one-pounder and $9.25 for an eight-ounce sirloin.

“I don’t know how people eat it (the Cowboy steak), but quite a few do, all by themselves,” said Sherod.

“We had a few lean years along the way,” she said, “but we’ve managed to build things up to where people come quite a ways to eat here.

“We’re way out in the woods, but people still come.”