Hungry Truckers Downshift in Castaic, Refuel at Cafe Mike

“The Trucker’s Place to Stop,” reads the cover of the menu at Cafe Mike, and stop they do.

Every few minutes another tractor-trailer rolls off the Golden State Freeway at the wind-swept whistle-stop of Castaic, and another stiff-legged man in a checkered shirt pushes through the door of the diner. Huge trucks crowd the back parking lot and the road in front, dwarfing the occasional sedan that stops while a family has a meal.

In a time when fast-food outlets and coffee shop chains have taken over the feeding of travelers, Cafe Mike is a throwback to another era. The squat, sand-colored, Art Deco building houses a mom-and-pop operation that caters to truckers 24 hours a day. The menu offers Mexican specialties in addition to the usual burgers and breakfasts.

Trucking Boom Helps

The diner is thriving in part because of its location and a boom in trucking. Always heavy, the flow of commercial truck traffic in and out of greater Los Angeles is at an all-time high. The big rigs aren’t likely to find parking space outside most urban restaurants. But Castaic, on the Golden State Freeway about 15 miles north of Sylmar, has ample parking. Sometimes confused with Castaic Junction a few miles to the south, Castaic is an old community within sight of Castaic Reservoir.

1 More important, however, is the way the diner treats its specialized clientele. Truckers like to eat, and Cafe Mike makes certain that no one leaves hungry. The bacon and egg breakfast, for example, consists of six pieces of thick-sliced bacon, three large eggs, a stack of hash browns as big as a size-eight shoe, bread, jam and coffee. Price, including tax: $3.83. Enchiladas come Paul Bunyan size. Pancakes cover the entire plate. A square deal on a square meal.

“Truckers come to a place that gives you a lot of food,” cashier Shirley Warner said. “This place gives you all you can eat and more. The other thing they want is a relaxed atmosphere. They get attached to a place and they keep coming to it.”

A jovial woman with a pink complexion and high-coiffed red hair, Warner makes it a point to welcome many of the customers by name. She has worked at Cafe Mike and its predecessor, Jose’s, for 17 years.

Many Familiar Faces

“I’ve known some of the truckers since I started here,” she said. “Now their sons are coming in and that’s what’s bad. It makes you realize how old you are.”

Slim Mahurin of Bakersfield is one of the restaurant’s steadiest customers. He first ate there when the place opened as the Royal in 1947. Mahurin fits the image of the trucker as modern cowboy. He has a relaxed manner, alert blue eyes, a weathered face and graying hair which he keeps clipped short and neatly combed.

His prized possession is a sterling silver belt buckle decorated with two rubies and white gold lettering that says “K. V. Slim.” The buckle was a gift from his employer, Kern Valley Packing. Mahurin, 62, started driving for the company when he was 20.

Despite the quantities of Mexican food he puts away at Cafe Mike, he has not outgrown his nickname.

‘I Just Stay Slim’

“I just stay slim automatically,” he said, shrugging. Mahurin added that the diner has become an institution among truck drivers.

“Between here and San Diego just about everyone I know waits to eat until they get to this place. You let your stomach growl a little while longer because it’s worth the wait. The food’s good, the people who run it are good, and there isn’t a time you won’t run into someone you know.”

One of Cafe Mike’s selling points is that truckers may stay overnight in the lot without charge. Other businesses offering parking, such as the diesel stations owned by national corporations, often charge $5.

“Those big major truck stops are pricing themselves out of customers,” Mahurin said. “We’ve felt, if you go in there and buy $150 worth of fuel, they ought to let you sleep overnight.”

There are times that travelers stay at Cafe Mike a good deal longer than overnight, and not by design. When snow or strong winds force Interstate 5 to close, the California Highway Patrol stops northbound traffic at Castaic’s Parker Road off-ramp.

Stuck 23 Hours

“Last year we were snowed in and I was stuck here 23 hours,” Mahurin recalled. “It hurt their business, but the owners didn’t ask anyone to leave. You kept your seat as long as you wanted it. They brought in boxes so people would have a place to sit inside. If someone ran out of money, Chris or Mike signed the check whether they knew them or not.”

Christine and Mayis Artonians bought the diner in 1976, a few months after immigrating to the United States from Iran. Mayis was born in Russia of Armenian parents. In this country he adopted the American first name “Mike” and gave it to the restaurant. Artonians has soft features and thin gray hair. He speaks quietly and uses many hand gestures.

“It was quite a time in the beginning,” he remembered. “First of all, this was a new country for us. The people were new. The kind of business was new. On top of it, Mexican food was completely new. Tamales? Enchiladas? I didn’t know what they were.”

Artonians kept the existing staff and concentrated on improving the building and kitchen. He learned to cook, and his wife became the morning cashier.

‘They Want a Cozy Place’

“The first year we worked very hard, sometimes 18 hours a day,” he said. “We learned what the truckers want in a restaurant and we gave it to them. Today there are not many convenient places for them to stop. Some of the places are so commercialized, it’s not very homey to them. They are hard workers. When they stop, they want a cozy place.”

Despite the success of Cafe Mike and the all-time-high number of trucks moving in and out of Los Angeles, Artonians has doubts about the future. He questions whether Castaic, with its diner and diesel stations, will keep a truck-based economy. Recreational attractions such as Magic Mountain, campgrounds and Castaic Lake are drawing visitors.

“I see in the future a conflict of whether it will stay a truck area or become more a resort and vacation area,” he said. “I think perhaps the trucks are going to be squeezed out.”

If so, a lot of squeezing will be required. According to Officer Tom Dailey of the CHP, an average of 5,600 commercial trucks pass Castaic each day headed north. A similar number pass southbound. The figures represent an increase of 25% in three years.

Amateurs on Road

“Everyone who lost a job in the last few years bought a truck,” Dailey said, “and a lot of them don’t know how to do much more than point it down the road.”

His cynicism is representative of a decided lack of harmony between truckers and law-enforcement officers, who believe that truckers drive too fast and use their CB radios to evade capture. Truckers answer that speed restrictions, particularly the 35-m.p.h. limit on the Grapevine’s northbound downgrade and the 40-m.p.h. limit on the southbound downgrade, are unnecessarily low.

Phil Padilla of Bakersfield, a driver for Witco Chemical, and Ted Koons, a produce trucker from Arkansas, complained about speed limits over coffee at Cafe Mike. They agreed that time is money to a trucker, much more than to a CHP officer. Padilla, a veteran of 38 years on the road, said that some younger drivers make matters worse by flagrantly speeding, bringing the law’s wrath down on all truckers. But then the talk turned to food.

“You have your favorite places to stop,” said Padilla, “and this is one of mine. They put out a hell of a meal. For my money, the Mexican food is the best around.”