The Soul of Santa : Restaurateur From Humble Beginnings Brings Christmas Cheer to Carson School

When Alfredo Garnica was a young boy, living in a household where food was scarce and luxuries nonexistent, Christmas was men in Santa suits dropping by the neighborhood to deliver gifts and take the children to charities for dinners of turkey, mashed potatoes and candies.

Garnica can still remember the taste of the food, the exhilaration of tearing open the gifts. And that is why for the last three years Garnica, now a successful 37-year-old restaurateur, has been the man in the Santa suit for the 600 pupils at Towne Elementary School in Carson.

Last week, Garnica and friends who were dressed as Barney and Baby Bop visited the school for three hours, handing out little bags of goodies. Garnica made a point of asking the principal for the names of the school’s three neediest children. He then listened carefully to what 6-year-olds Sarah, Bob and Jose wanted for Christmas, dutifully noting a Barbie Jeep for Sarah; radio-controlled cars for Jose and Bob.

He checked the list not twice but thrice, and then was off to the toy store to make their lives nice.

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Garnica bought four radio-controlled cars for Jose and Bob, and a Barbie Jeep, horse and Ken doll--smartly dressed in a black-and-white shirt--for Sarah.

“They are going to get a kick out of this,” Garnica said with a wide smile as he strolled the busy aisles. “So will I.”

He will drop by their homes today with gifts for the children and turkey, ham and candies for their families.

“It is a wonderful feeling to see a kid’s face lit up when they get what they need or want. It reminds me of myself when I was a child and others would help us,” said Garnica, who owns the California Grill and Bar restaurants in Carson and Hawthorne.

Still, playing Santa doesn’t always go smoothly. When he told Sarah’s mother about his plans, she thanked him but wondered if he wouldn’t mind giving the gifts to some friends who were recently evicted from their home. So Garnica went back to the mall and bought gifts for the friends, too.

Later, with the help of his elves (his sister and some of his employees) Garnica wrapped the presents and filled three boxes with the turkey, ham, candies and other food for the children’s families. He filled stockings too.

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It is his boyhood memories that keep him going.

Born in Gardena to Mexican immigrants, Garnica was the eldest of eight children. His father was absent and his mother and siblings lived on welfare.

At age 10, he began helping support the family by delivering newspapers.

As a teen-ager he held a number of odd jobs, hoping to someday open a restaurant; he had always liked the atmosphere of lots of people gathered for a good time. After graduating from Gardena High School in 1975, Garnica went to work at Hennessey Taverna in Redondo Beach, where he learned the restaurant business.

In 1986, his dream of owning a restaurant came true. With money he had saved and a bank loan, he opened the California Grill and Bar in Hawthorne, and in 1990 he opened a second one in Carson.

“He is not wealthy by California standards, but he has enough to share with others,” said his best friend, Salvador Robles, a maintenance supervisor at an aerospace company. “He likes to give the underprivileged kids what he did not have as a kid.”

In a sense, Garnica plays Santa all year for Towne Elementary, which is three miles from his Carson restaurant and in a working-class area with a large immigrant population.

He pays $500 per month to supply the school with 30 tutors. To celebrate the end of the school year, he and his employees have a barbecue for the school.

“He is an unusual person,” said Carson Mayor Michael I. Mitoma. “Unlike others, he does not only donate money, but he also donates his own time. He goes out there and cooks the kids hamburgers and hot dogs himself.”

Said Garnica: “I don’t let the bad things that happened in my life get in my way. As human beings we have to take action, and I take action.”

So what does this Santa want for Christmas? Every Otis Redding compact disc.

“You know,” he said as headed for the mall exit, “I love that song, ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.’ It goes something like this: ‘Sittin’ in the morning sun, I’ll be sittin’ when the morning come . . .’ ”

And as he stepped out of the mall into the golden morning with his bag of gifts, Santa kept on singing.