El Encanto in Azusa closes doors after 8 decades

[Lester]

Historic restaurant in Azusa closes doors after 8 decades

By Diana L. Roemer , Staff Writer

AZUSA -- The historic El Encanto restaurant in Azusa Canyon has survived fires and mudslides for 80 years.
But Cal Risen, who has leased the restaurant since 1998, was unable to survive a rent increase and declining business after the 2002 Williams Fire burned within 100 yards.

The restaurant, at the base of the Angeles National Forest on Old San Gabriel Canyon Road one mile north of Azusa, closed Sunday to the chagrin of Risen, patrons and workers.

Risen said he and other potential buyers, including the owner of an El Monte-based seminary that recently bought 33.6 acres nearby, have been competing to buy the nearly 40 acres on which the restaurant stands.

Muchin Lin of Northridge, who co-owns the land and the restaurant building with corporate partners, put the property up for sale two years ago.

"But when the price went up to $4 million I couldn't afford to buy it. So I'm out of here,' said Risen, who will open a new restaurant, Sourdough Lil's, in Lake Havasu, Ariz.

Glendora Realtor Stuart Tuttle said about 40 acres, which he manages, are for sale for $4 million. Included in the property are the restaurant, the land that is now home to a small trailer park and a small portion of nearby Rainbow Stables, Tuttle said. The trailers, which can be moved, are privately owned and their owners are trying to sell them separately. In the stables, about one-third of a riding rink will change ownership.

Tuttle said there are multiple bidders. He said Risen could have stayed on a new lease but chose not to. Risen said the new lease price was too high and with the land for sale he wasn't certain a new owner would allow him to stay.

Patron Joyce Frost said she and her husband, Peter, who live in La Verne, are upset the restaurant has closed.

"We're going to miss El Encanto very, very much. We went there every week and enjoyed every moment of it for years. We're looking for another restaurant to eat at, but we're not impressed.'

El Encanto, which means "the enchanted,' opened in 1924. It temporarily closed in September 2002 after the Williams Fire charred hillsides within 100 yards of it. Firefighters ate for free at the restaurant during the canyon's cleanup. Business slowed after the fire, Risen said, and the restaurant never recovered financially.

Earlier disasters temporarily shuttered El Encanto, too.

In 1969, the hills above slid into the restaurant during rains following the Canyon Inn Fire. The owners, Bill and Donna Hinkley, cleaned up the mess and reopened the restaurant in 1970.

The city has tried to buy the land since it went on the block to preserve it as part of a planned wilderness park, said Azusa Assistant City Manager Robert Person. But the city could not afford it, he said.

While he described the financial loss to the city as slight, Person said the closure of another landmark restaurant in Azusa would hurt the city.

"A ballooning real estate market that hasn't burst yet has claimed one more victim,' Person said.

Fifteen El Encanto employees are struggling to find new jobs, Risen said.

His secretary of six years, Donna Johnston, wiped away tears as she carried trash to bins on Wednesday.

"Eighty years and we're done,' she said.

Dr. Joseph Tong, who heads the El-Monte based seminary known as ITS, is bidding for the property. He has proposed to build a seminary at the site if he buys it. He bought 33.6 acres west of El Encanto in March. The old Canyon Inn, a former biker bar, stands shuttered on that land.

Person said he does not know if a seminary can be built there because a zoning change would have to be approved by the City Council.

But Buddhists worship a quarter-mile north in the canyon. Karl Le Maire, the manager and caretaker of the Buddhist property, has said members meditate and perform cultural ceremonies there. They hope to build a temple there someday.

Risen will auction off the restaurant's goods at 11 a.m. Tuesday. He said he had many ideas for the property but they're all gone now.

"We had a lot of good times,' Risen said. "A lot of fun.'

-- Diana L. Roemer can be reached at [phone], Ext. 2105, or by e-mail at [e-mail] .


www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,205~12220~2193515,00.html

[crazyhermit]

Thanks for all that great history.

A few other notes on that restaurant. It began as a two story house, owned by Miller and Henrietta Newman. Henrietta was the daughter of the famous gold miner Henry Roberts, who owned the oldest store in the San Gabriels Mountains (inside Follows Camp) That store survived from 1861 to 2005, when it was destroyed by a flood. Henry had a stage service just above the metro rail tracks where he ran miners up to Eldoradoville in the East Fork, an old mining town destroyed by a flood in 1862.

Henrietta's husband was a forest ranger, who patrolled the canyon from the early 1920s until his death in 1952. Before it became a restaurant it was used as a ranger station called Camp One. Henrietta was a good cook and the couple started hosting private parties with dinner and dancing in 1934. By 1938 it finally became a true restaurant. Miller Newman died in 1954 and Henrietta sold the site in 1977 to Byron and Donna Hinkley. At that time it became known at Hinkley's El Encanto.

Here's a photo of the original El Encanto house / ranger station / restaurant ...



And here's Henrietta Roberts Newman and Miller Emil Newman ...