An Evening of Good Times and Favorite Tunes

A large middle-aged man stands in the curve of a grand piano and sings, “On the Road to Mandalay.” That old Kipling warhorse had never sounded so good. The singer was Burc Lander, and when his virile voice rolls over the lyrics, he makes “the sun come up like thunder out of China ‘cross the bay.”

It seems impossible that this venerable clunker of a song is rousing, dramatic, romantic and full of excitement and adrenaline.

Lander is employed at a restaurant called La Quinta Gardens in the tiny old town of La Quinta in the Coachella Valley.

It’s a restaurant where the waiters and waitresses are performers. You will see your server toss a salad and then drift to the piano and sing. Often almost the entire group of servers joins in, and someone pouring hollandaise way in the back will add a bell-like passage.

They are people who make you want to put your fork down and listen.

The establishment was created by Edalyn and Mario Lalli, who have been in show business more than 40 years. At least, Mario has; Edalyn has been in it for, maybe, 35 years. They owned a restaurant in Rancho Mirage for 13 years, but it was set up theater style and was much more formal. The Lallis say that people like the informal atmosphere of La Quinta Gardens much better.

The restaurant is in a 50-year-old house the Lallis bought two years ago. They took out the walls and raised the false ceilings. On the exterior, white plaster walls and window boxes of geraniums make it the same Spanish house, set among a grove of trees, as before, except that swags of miniature lights now deck the white walls at the entrance.

The staff plays requests whenever they can. The hot numbers are the songs from “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables.” Edalyn says she also gets lots of requests for songs from “Evita,” and everyone wants the drinking song from “La Traviata.”

The accompanist is Gale Enger, who has been with the Lallis for eight years. Enger is also the organist at Saint Francis of Assisi church in La Quinta, which is my parish. At Mass I’m taken aback with delight when I hear Haydn, Liszt and Bach, having heard Enger the night before do “Raphsody in Blue.”

Edalyn said: “Mario calls all the shots,” meaning that he selects the program. He went to Juilliard School of Music and sang with the New York City Opera.

Edalyn took her master’s degree at the American Conservatory in Chicago and then did “Up In Central Park,” among a number of hit shows.

In 1952, Mario moved from New York to Aspen, which was not the candy-box frou frou place it is now. Then he went to Denver, where he met Edalyn, and they have been delighting each other and audiences ever since.

Burc Sander joined them in Denver where they did musical theater, and was 25 years with them when he brought his dramatic voice and demeanor to La Quinta with the Lallis.

Waiter Rick Doerfler sings and dances, his showpiece being “New York, New York.” He is from Portland, Ore., and worked in professional theater there.

When waiter David Hall, from Juilliard and the New York City Opera Company, takes the stage, you know someone has arrived.

Waitress Dawn Kehret has a marvelous way with a love song and had several years on Broadway. Brenda Freeman is a small woman with a big voice and an operatic background.

Waitress Julie Concoby is a singer and dancer. Her training was at the College of the Desert. She has a sparkle that seems to show that she loves what she’s doing.

“Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end,” and when you hear these people, you’re pretty sure that these are the days--days won’t get any better than a house full of people who like you, your music coming up, the lights going down and an audience seeming to be all made of friends.