Restaurant Serves Up Camaraderie

Gloria rolls out the appetizer buffet at 3 p.m., and the regulars serenade her to the tune of Van Morrison: Gloooooria . . . G-L-O-R-I-A . . . Gloooooooooria . . .

After a few stiff drinks, Jeff will do his peacock imitation.

Rick takes a 10-minute catnap every now and again at the bar.

And about 5 p.m., Bonnie and “Clyde” show up, sit at their table by the fireplace and order the Paul Bunyan steak, medium rare.

Day after day, the same cars are parked in the same spots at the same time in front of The Trails restaurant in Duarte. It’s a place where everybody knows your name, your drink, your children, your job. They’d probably know your secrets if there were any left.

“You can look out the window and tell who’s inside,” said co-owner Robert “Buzz” Basha, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. “The repetition is amazing.”

Very few customers walk in the front of the 44-year-old restaurant, where a wagon wheel leans against the wall and the name of the restaurant is spelled out with sticks. The back door, hidden in a corner past the bathrooms, constantly swings open.

Seeing Rick saunter in, Mary the bartender poured his bourbon and 7 and placed it in front of the corner bar stool, steps ahead of him. Wayne got his VO and Coke the same way.

“It’s 3 o’clock, Bob,” she said. “And it’s hot outside.”

Bob glanced at his watch and wobbled out the door. His wife always picks him up at 3.

“How’s your liver?” Fran the waitress asked Wolf.

“Not very good,” he replied, grabbing his side.

“I meant the chicken,’ she giggled and took his empty plate away to the kitchen.

Before there was Duarte, there was The Trails.

Built along the side of Route 66, the restaurant originally served as a pit stop for travelers headed West.

“The food hasn’t changed, or the personnel,” said Clyde, a retiree who has been coming to the restaurant for three decades. “They’ve redecorated and expanded, that’s all.”

Red and yellow hanging lamps dimly light the oversized eatery. The names of the co-owners are carved into a wooden beam along the ceiling. Pictures of singers, including Elvis, line the wall next to the piano.

The original owner, 75-year-old Edith Reinhardt Brothers, still operates the restaurant.

Jay the day manager, who has been working at The Trails for nine years, ran back and forth to check on Edith in her house behind the restaurant: down the hallway, through the kitchen and out a screen window about three feet off the ground. Edith was cooking stew.

Back at the bar, James complained about the police. Wayne complained about the Orioles.

Nothing goes unnoticed.

“Look, it’s the water delivery guy,” Wayne said, gesturing toward a man sitting at a table in the distance. “In a few minutes his girlfriend will walk in.”

“We come in here to relax,” said a 70ish customer named Roger, whom everyone calls the Prince of Love. “We swap lies. It’s therapy for us.”

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Most customers are in their 50s or older. Anyone younger is someone’s kid, said Rick, who has been a customer for 30 years.

“The people are real,” Rick said, his black bifocals resting gently in his gray hair. “We’ve all had good times, and all had bad. It’s an education to sit here and listen. Everybody knows your problems.”

And if they don’t, they soon will.

Mary the bartender has bionic hearing. And whenever she catches a bit of news, she “stirs the bucket.”

“I kind of grew up with these people,” said co-owner Buzz, 54. “We share in the customers’ heartaches.”

It’s like that old TV series about that bar in Boston, Rick said. “Everybody knows everybody. We even have a postman who comes in here.”