John Zubieta; O.C. Eateries Built Following on Low-Cost Meals

John Zubieta, the personable owner of working-class Orange County restaurants where the prime rib is affordable and the regulars have names like Sexy Rexie and Laguna Bill, has died at age 62. He will be remembered at services today in Huntington Beach.

In a sign of his customers’ devotion, the faithful have flocked to Zubieta’s various eateries to mourn since his death Friday at a Los Angeles hospital. He died after a brief illness, said his wife Brenda Zubieta.

Best known for his prime rib, John Zubieta also served pizza, lobster, chicken and other fare at the nautically themed Zubie’s Dry Dock in Huntington Beach; the barn-like Zubie’s Chicken Coop in Newport Beach; Zubie’s Gilded Cage; and Zubie’s Restaurant, the latter two in an industrial area of Costa Mesa.

The Gilded Cage used to be called the Cuckoo’s Nest and was ground zero to the local punk rock movement during the late 1970s and early ‘80s. The punker patrons of the Nest often tangled in the shared parking lot with the blue-collar clientele of Zubie’s.

Zubieta’s restaurants are best known for inexpensive meals, like 99-cent breakfasts. Customers recalled that he was proud that he bought in bulk and did business only in cash.

“The biggest thing John was known for was his prime rib on Thursdays. People came from L.A. for it,” said Frank Martinez, 64, of Costa Mesa, a retired investigator for the county public defender’s office. “You get between 12 and 16 ounces of prime rib, plus your veggies and stuff. Plus, he always poured a good drink.”

Zubieta bought the Costa Mesa property at the corner of Placentia and 19th Street in 1968, opened Zubie’s Restaurant with some picnic tables and leased out a building on the lot that would later become famous as the Cuckoo’s Nest. Zubieta did not renew the lease when it expired, and instead opened a restaurant there in 1986 called Zubie’s Gilded Cage.

He opened the Dry Dock in 1991; the Chicken Coop opened in 1997. The following year, Zubieta sold the aging Costa Mesa buildings to avoid investing more money in the mostly industrial pocket of the city. Earlier this year, Brenda Zubieta said, Zubieta eased his workload and subleased the Chicken Coop to its manager, a longtime employee.

The son of a Basque meat market owner, Zubieta was born in Los Angeles on May 21, 1938, spent his childhood in Santa Monica and, after his family moved to Orange County, attended and graduated from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana.

He was working as a food market manager in Corona del Mar when he decided to try the restaurant business. That first place was also called Zubie’s Restaurant, a pizza shop he opened in the 1960s across the street from the Port movie theater in Corona del Mar. He later sold it for larger quarters.

The decor was unpretentious: sawdust, aquariums and plastic checked tablecloths.

“The Chicken Coop on old Newport Boulevard is the first bar-restaurant he owned where they actually have waiters instead of [you] standing in line to order and pick up,” patron Steve Mitchell recalled Tuesday with amusement. “He was a little nervous about being so fancy.”

Zubieta spent most of his time at his restaurants, but was well known as a hot rod buff who, more than once, stopped motorists on the street to offer cash for their cars. He owned a number of souped-up cars, some of which he built, customer Martinez said.

“They were all classy looking. Every Saturday morning at the Dry Dock in Huntington Beach, there would be a car show,” Martinez said. “The place would be packed, he’d sell 99-cent burritos. By 8 o’clock, the parking lot was jammed.”

Brenda Zubieta said it was other car buffs who began gathering in the parking lot of the shopping center where Zubie’s Dry Dock is located, but her husband was asked to provide breakfast because the crowd got so big.

“He thought, you give the working man a break like that, and they’ll be back,” his wife said Tuesday. “He was quite a guy; they broke the mold.”

Zubieta is survived by wife Brenda, daughter Trisha Rintoul, son Tom Caponera and grandchildren Martine and Bryon.

Services are scheduled at 11 a.m. today at Calvary Baptist Church, 8281 Garfield Ave., in Huntington Beach. In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of John M. Zubieta may be made to Child Help USA, P.O. Box 2954, Newport Beach, 92659.