Restaurateur Sees Promise in Proximity to Arts Plaza

Bob Ciarelli was pleased to see theatergoers flocking to the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks for the recent production of “Les Miserables.” It’s not that Ciarelli had a hand in the show. It’s more that he was a very interested bystander.

The Thousand Oaks resident is the owner of The New Jungleland Cafe, a bistro-style restaurant just down the street from the arts complex, in the Select Conejo Plaza shopping center on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

During the two-week run of the road tour of “Les Miserables,” he said, the cafe saw a sizable increase from its usual number of dinner guests.

“ ‘Les Miserables’ consistently gave us an influx,” said Ciarelli, 54, who opened the restaurant in August. “We had reservations for groups of 11 and eight, in addition to the usual fours and twos.”

One might think that because the restaurant is near the arts complex, it receives a steady flow of local and out-of-town arts patrons. But Ciarelli has found otherwise.

Early on, the 1,200-square-foot restaurant was open until midnight Fridays and Saturdays, but a lack of post-concert and post-theater business ended the late-night hours. “We were killing ourselves staying open until midnight,” he said, “and it was always quiet from 8:30 on.”

Similarly, until last week the restaurant was open for lunch. Though business was OK, said Ciarelli, it wasn’t enough to warrant staying open during the day.

“This wasn’t something where you open your doors and you’re inundated right away,” he said. “I think this is an ideal situation, but we are in a strip center and we are in the back, off of the frontage road, so it’s hard to draw people in.”

One way Ciarelli has tried to attract customers from the outset has been through tugging their nostalgic heartstrings. Naming his cafe after the popular wild animal park that occupied the arts plaza site was a good start. Originally known as Goebel’s Lion Farm when it opened in 1928, Jungleland closed in 1969 because of bankruptcy.

Reproduced Jungleland photos, culled from the Thousand Oaks Library and the Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park, line the restaurant’s walls. Among them is an image of animal trainer Mabel Stark with a Bengal tiger named Prairie. Near a corner of the restaurant hangs a picture of Clark Gable holding two lion cubs. And in the men’s restroom, one of MGM’s Leo the Lion mascots is shown in its role as grand marshal of a Conejo Valley Days parade.

In keeping with the Jungleland theme, Chef Michel Lerond, who spent 11 years as a chef at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel, mixes a selection of Jungleburgers with his menu of crepes, and pasta, chicken, steak and fish dishes.

“Some residents who have been here just a couple of years don’t know why we named it what we did,” said Ciarelli, “but other people come in who definitely remember Jungleland.” Ciarelli, who is also a marketing associate for Sysco Food Services of Los Angeles Inc., a food distribution company, said he sees the cafe as a long-term investment more than an immediate gold mine.

“The area around the Civic Arts Plaza is going through a renaissance,” he said. “One has to think three to five years down the road. The community is still growing.”

A cinema, restaurants and retail businesses have been proposed for a 175,000-square-foot portion of the city-owned Arts Plaza property that is vacant. And Reed Henkleman, a retail specialist for CB Commercial Inc. of Ventura, said the entire area around the Civic Arts Plaza is likely to develop into a family-oriented entertainment and destination spot.

He said establishing the area as such would enable it to compete with such similar nearby developments as the Janss Marketplace with its nine-screen Mann theater, and another retail center--to be anchored by a Mann theater and a Barnes & Noble bookstore--soon to break ground at Thousand Oaks and Westlake boulevards.

“The [Civic Arts Plaza] area is in a struggle to find its own identity with entertainment uses, such as an independent bookstore, or family-oriented amusement, like a theater and restaurants,” said Henkleman. “They need the theater to increase nighttime activity.”