Antidote for Strip Malls

Imagine there are no master planners. It’s easy if you try. Even easier if you wander the sidewalks and meet the merchants of Main Street in Downtown Garden Grove.

A Mexican restaurant serving chips and salsa amid a mass of Elvis memorabilia? Venerable antiques surrounding a shrine to Howdy Doody?

The contrasting sights and sounds smack of a genuineness that far outstrips the strip malls. Main Street’s quirks and characters are the antidote to franchise madness.

Old-timers recall the days when orange groves surrounded Main Street and people hitched their horses before tying one on.

Relative newcomers talk of new blood provided in part by adjacent satellite campuses for Cal State Fullerton, the University of La Verne and Coastline Community College.

Bard None

For Charles Johanson, executive producer of the nearby Grove Theater Center (12852 Main St., [714] 741-9555), it’s the mix that matters.

“During the day, we get the people who’ve been coming here for years,” Johanson says. “At night, we see the younger generation in the clubs, the shops, the restaurants.

“It is a main street, with everything that connotes. But it isn’t tired or sleepy. There’s an energy.”

Johanson wasn’t sure how he’d get along in Downtown Garden Grove when he and artistic director Kevin Cochran first set about resuscitating the Grove five years ago. But Main Street made room for a transplanted East Coast kid, even before he sheared his shoulder-length hair.

Now the Grove has a booth at Sleepy Hollow Antique Mall (12965 Main St., [714] 539-9187. Hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.) where it sells old props and where a central display case shows off Howdy Doody collectibles.

And even though Johanson lives in Long Beach, he often eats and shops on Main Street, which, he says, is as much his home as it is the Grove’s.

“Nothing’s hidden,” he says. “It really is as nice as it looks.”

Maybe Johanson and Cochran fit in so well because their choice of shows runs to the offbeat and the traditional, a mix that has earned them strong reviews and a loyal audience.

The center just finished its fifth season with Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” but the series also featured “Twelfth Dog Night,” a combination of the Bard and the “timeless poetry of the classic rock of Three Dog Night.”

They’ve renovated the lobby of the 172-seat Gem Theater and now offer after-show comedy in an upstairs lounge area. The same center that has featured ska band Reel Big Fish performing in the 550-seat Festival Amphitheater will showcase an evening of rarely performed Samuel Beckett pieces during the upcoming season.

You can’t pigeonhole their theatrical tastes, but you can pick Johanson and Cochran out of a Main Street crowd. They’re the ones wheeling a cart of lumber for scenery down the sidewalk from the nearby Home Depot (10801 Garden Grove Blvd., [714] 539-0319. Hours: Monday-Friday, 6 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, 6 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.).

Over the Rainbow

The heavy door of the Rainbow Room (12942 Main St., [714] 537-9946. Hours: daily, 7 a.m.-midnight) swings open and the weight of history spills out into the sunlight. Louie Stavros, 82, slaps another burger on the grill, as he’s done for 46 years, and the sizzle punctuates the conversation of the regulars lined up on their regular stools.

Operating a neighborhood bar is as much a hands-on experience for Stavros as nonprofit theater is for Johanson and Cochran.

Stavros and his brother, George, opened the Rainbow Room in 1953, three years before Garden Grove was a city. The bar’s changed little since then, even though the hitching post out front has gone the way of the orange groves.

Inside, they’ve added a couple of TVs, some dart boards and that’s about it. Same bar, same booths, same Louie at the grill.

Prices aren’t the same, but they are still reasonable. A draft is $1.50 and a burger $1.75. The steak sandwich is the priciest menu item at $5, but regulars say it’s well worth it.

“This is a classic neighborhood bar, and that’s the way we like it,” says Angelo Tavlarides, who married into the family and bought into the business when George retired in 1987.

George died two months ago. “He was my friend, my advisor, my brother, my buddy,” Louie says softly.

And the bar?

“This,” he says with a smile, “is my toy.”

Burning Love

J.J. Jauregui’s big, black-rimmed glasses make you think Elvis, all right. But Costello, not Presley. Then you notice the tattoo of The King on his right forearm when he shakes your hand. And then he ushers you into the Crooners Lounge at his Azteca Mexican Restaurant (12911 Main St., [714] 638-3790. Restaurant hours: daily, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. The lounge closes at 2 a.m.).

There’s the Elvis jukebox, the Elvis guitar, the Elvis plates, the Elvis gold records. The miniature Elvis swiveling his miniature hips. Pictures of Elvis in uniform, Elvis in leis, Elvis in Vegas, Elvis in love. More than 450 Elvis items in all, so many that they’ve invaded the dining area.

The fixation started about seven years ago, shortly after Jauregui began managing the Azteca, which his aunt, Connie Skipworth, first built into a popular eatery. He wanted to replace the pictures of “old ladies” in the lounge with something less dowdy. He turned to images of a pop hero from his childhood.

Now “the collection engulfs me,” Jauregui says. “It draws people from all over Southern California. But they wouldn’t keep them coming back if it wasn’t for my aunt’s recipes. The food still has to come first.”

The spicy tostada doesn’t disappoint, but even the garlic isn’t as enduring as the mental image of Presley portraits hanging next to a stained-glass window depicting a California mission.

One wall, two very different eras.

Some things were meant to be.

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IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Take the Garden Grove Freeway (22) to Euclid Street and head north. The first major cross street is Garden Grove Boulevard; turn left. The first street on your right is Main Street; turn right and you’re there.

OTHER DIVERSIONS: Grab a blended mocha and a scone at Yaba Java Coffee House (12908 Main St., [714] 534-1265. Shop for Christmas ornaments at Gary’s Woodcrafts & Country Store (12891 Main St., [714] 636-2010. Load up on the steak and eggs or the chili cheese fries at Kaye’s Kitchen (12939 Main St., [714] 636-1480. Browse the Native American artifacts at Harper’s Trading Post (12952 Main St., [714] 636-2435.

OTHER PEOPLE TO MEET: Leo and Virginia Zlaket can talk neighborhood history going back to 1927, which is when Zlaket’s Market (12921 Main St., [714] 534-2188. “We started out as one of six or seven markets on the street,” Leo says. “We’re the only ones left.” Zlaket’s has thrived by evolving from a grocery store to a specialty market and deli. They sell gourmet gift baskets, premium cuts of meat and signature sandwiches like the teriyaki beef tri tip for $4.95. Check out the photos that dot one wall.

WHEN TO COME: On Friday nights, owners of classic cars meet on the street to swap stories and show off their rides. That’s when Downtown’s at its bustling best.

WHERE TO PARK: There’s free parking on the street, at a lot on the west side of Main or at three lots around the Grove Theater Center.