SATICOY : Restaurant Prepares to Close, Dishes Up Final Free Meal

For the last time, Charles (Buster) Davis threw open the doors of his Saticoy restaurant and fed customers for free.

Next fall, Buster’s Original Bar-b-que and Bakery and surrounding buildings will be gone. Instead of the expansive parking lot where 800 people ate a free seven-course turkey dinner Thursday night, there will be bulldozers and construction equipment as the California Department of Transportation widens California 118.

A native of Saticoy, Davis opened a fruit stand at the site 15 years ago, built his restaurant there five years ago and remodeled it last year. Since opening, he has given away a traditional turkey dinner on the Thursday before Thanksgiving Day.

“This is the way I tithe,” Davis, 43, said as he kept the lemonade and coffee coming.

He must close the restaurant by Dec. 31, he said, and he hasn’t found another location. He owns two smaller restaurants in Ventura and Oxnard, but the loss of his first restaurant is difficult, he said.

“This store is the mother hen. When they take this place, they put the other stores in jeopardy because this is where we make everything,” Davis said.

The project will widen the aging two-lane Saticoy Bridge to four lanes and straighten out a dogleg. About 32,000 vehicles a day use the Saticoy Bridge and the adjoining highway.

Among those eating and listening to gospel music in the cold air Thursday was Helen Monzon, a neighbor. Her house, built 35 years ago by her husband, will also be demolished.

“They’re taking down my house. I’m crying about it,” Monzon said. “If someone else was moving in, that would be all right, but they’re going to smash it.”

But Davis hopes that this will not be his last turkey giveaway.

“I will have this event somewhere next year. I don’t have the foggiest idea where. But there will be a place,” he said.