Events


ON A SCORCHER OF A DAY: Miss Cook’s Corner 2006, Gaelyn Bell of Rancho Santa Margarita, cools off with the help of Shelly Madden at the “Ladies Who Ride Day” event Saturday in Trabuco Canyon. It raised money for the Cordelia Knott Wellness Center for Breast Cancer. ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Record-breaking heat

Santa Ana: 104 degrees, breaking record of 95 in 2005

Laguna Beach: 94 degrees, breaking record of 87 in 1960

Newport Beach: 81 degrees, breaking record of 80 in 1960

A record heat topping the 100s across Orange County and the rest of the state kept residents indoors, increased energy consumption and threatened to overload the statewide power grid Saturday.

The intense heat prompted the first electrical emergency of the year. California ISO issued a Stage One Emergency notification Saturday afternoon, urging residents to conserve power through Monday.

"We just saw an incredible demand for electricity due to temperatures that were very, very hot," Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman for the state power grid manager.

Temperatures reached 117 in the Cleveland National Forest, 108 in San Clemente and 93 in Huntington Beach, where some 60,000 people were on the sand, many out to catch the first weekend of the U.S. Open of Surfing.

"This is the hottest it's probably been since 1995," said Brandt Maxwell, a National Weather Service forecaster.

The emergency notification came after reserve margins dipped below acceptable levels, McCorkle said. As power plants work harder to meet increasing demand, she said, they run a higher risk of equipment problems.

Scattered power outages were reported in north Orange County and in San Clemente, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, prompted by record demand and the scorching heat, power officials said.

The hot weather, brought on by a high pressure system over most of the western United States, is expected to last through Monday.

"This is clearly unusual," Maxwell said. "There's been very little sea breeze to cool things down."


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Beach Cities Style Magazine Restaurant Guide
Beach Cities Dining

Cooks Corner
19122 Live Oak Canyon Road, Trabuco Canyon
949.858.0266

In 1926, Jack Cook converted a cabin into a restaurant for miners and local ranchers. During World War II, El Toro Marines considered it to be an off base officers’ club. In 1970, a Santa Ana motorcycle accessories owner purchased it and Cooks Corner was molded into what it represents today…an old-fashioned roadhouse with sawdust on the floor, cowboy burgers are bigger than the buns, and graffiti on the ceiling tells of past loves and celebrations with the obligatory pool table and neon signs.

Recently declared a National Landmark, it’s here to stay. New owners Christal Katelaris, Pete Katelaris and Costas Papacharalambous vow to keep its rustic character even with upgrades like new heat lamps and picnic tables.

Order your food at the inside window and wait for your number to be called. Sit on an Orange County Chopper stool, and listen to the jukebox play Old Time Rock & Roll.

Beer flows freely (don’t ask for a wine list) and a variety of hot and cold sandwiches and appetizers, such as Buffalo hot wings and chili cheese fries are the main fare. They offer a chuck wagon salad, enchiladas and Outback chicken, too. Prices range from $4.00 to $5.75.

Outside Harley riders exchange stories or begin a ride. Leather vests, jackets and chaps as well as jewelry with skulls and iron crosses can be purchased to complete their weekend look.

Dress is definitely casual, and tattoos are visible on many of the riders. Within their ranks a variety of people, from stereotypical hog riders to professionals, doctors and lawyers, can be seen.

For a fun Sunday afternoon, take a ride on the wild side. Visit Cooks Corner, order a beer and hamburger and take in the character of this old-fashioned roadhouse.

— Wendy Sipple

INSIDE OC
OC METRO

By Patrick Mott

Backwoods Shrine
Cook’s Corner has been dispensing beer and burgers since the ’30s.

The word somehow had reached north OC that Cook’s Corner was a goner, and you couldn’t have strapped a worse bummer on people if you’d discovered that beer was carcinogenic.

How the rumor got started was anybody’s guess, but it took hold and for several days people were skulking around and muttering about hell and handbaskets and kicking their dogs precisely the same sort of behavior you see in little kids who have just had one of their favorite toys snatched away.

So when it was found out that the death of Cook’s Corner had been greatly exaggerated, there was rejoicing among the people precisely the same sort of behavior you see in little kids who have just had one of their favorite toys returned to them with fresh batteries.

Not that many of us in the north county go to Cook’s Corner that often. I haven’t been there for three years. But the thought of the place getting bulldozed to make room for yet another tract of beige houses or God help us a strip mall, was enough to send half of us into a tailspin of despair and the other half straight to Cook’s to throw themselves in front of the earth movers.

That’s a lot of emotion to show for a ramshackle biker bar that smells like stale beer and Lysol.

Well, at least it used to smell that way. Far and away the preeminent roadhouse in OC, Cook’s Corner, which sits at the junction of El Toro, Santiago Canyon and Live Oak Canyon roads, used to be a lonely outpost of rugged behavior, a little beacon of genial (and occasionally not so genial) rowdiness that attracted two-wheeled vehicles like it was magnetized. It was simply impossible to drive a motorcycle past it.

For many years it was nearly the only sign of life out there. After your drive into the wilderness, it was where you turned off to head into the even deeper outback of O’Neill Regional Park (and the Trabuco Oaks Steak House, which was to beef what Cook’s Corner was to chili). Cook’s Corner was nearly the only reason to venture out there, but it was reason enough.

The place had such a significant remoteness-to-notoriety ratio that new reporters at the OC Register, particularly in the late ’70s and early ’80s, were considered hopeless shavetails until they knew not only where Cook’s Corner was but what it was.

The “what” was, and is, the fun part. Although the structure looks as if it sprang from the ground one primeval day shortly after the invention of the Harley-Davidson, it actually began life in 1931 as a roadside hamburger joint opened by Earl Jack “E.J.” Cook, the son of the original owner of the land. Fifteen years later, when the Santa Ana Army Air Base began a slow process of dismantling after World War II, Cook bought one of the base’s buildings, a mess hall, dragged it up El Toro Road and replaced his hamburger stand with it. By this time he’d acquired a liquor license and the former mess hall became a backwoods tavern.

Anything in Orange County that’s still going strong after 20 years is usually accorded the status of landmark. Anything still thriving after 50 years is considered an institution. There has been a roadhouse of one sort or another at Cook’s Corner for nearly 75 years. That makes it a shrine.

OK, so what’s so great about it? Nothing in particular and everything in general. It’s not much different from any other roadside or back-country tavern you might see almost anywhere in America. There’s usually one specialty on the menu, or maybe two, the beer is usually extra cold and sometimes the talk can get extra loud. Occasionally people go through doors without their feet touching the ground. Occasionally they go out windows. Much more often they sit at the bar or lean over pool tables and joke and laugh and try in vain to rag on the bartender, who is always firmly in control. Go there once and it’s a curiosity. Go twice and it’s friendly. Go again and it becomes, in some small measure, your place. Even if you haven’t called or written for some time, it’s still your old pal.

More than that, it’s where your dad stopped for a burger and a cold one and a few laughs. And maybe his dad. And maybe even his dad before him. The important thing is that it remains. In a region that worships the new, in an area where the bulldozers nearly always win, in an economy that’s driven by the big, the specific and the impersonal, there’s much reason to rejoice in the fact that a simple roadhouse bar that got its start in the first years of the Depression is still being loved and patronized and cared for today.

Many of us may not walk through the front door of Cook’s Corner regularly, but we know where it is, and what it is and, most importantly, why it is. OCM

Patrick Mott is a longtime Orange County editor and journalist.

Cook's Corner has cleaned up its act. Well, sort of.

The roadside tavern in the canyons of Orange County is still as rugged-looking as a World War II-era-mess-hall-turned-biker-bar should look.

There are beer stains and sawdust on the floor. Bullhorns, U.S. flags and Christmas lights pass for decoration, and weathered picnic tables serve as the outdoor dining facilities.

But some things have changed. Dishes have replaced paper plates, heat lamps keep outdoor diners warm, and a couple of months ago, the place got electronic cash registers.

"The old ones were really old," said bartender Toni Peasley. "All they were missing were those cranks on the side."

The modest changes are the work of Pete Katelaris and Costas Papacharalambous, friends and business partners who bought the watering hole a few months ago.

In deference to the bar's past, Katelaris was careful in discussing its future.

"We are keeping it rustic, definitely keeping it rustic," he said, like a doctor reassuring a patient that it won't hurt.

The new owners, who live only a few miles from the restaurant, know that change is not always welcome around these canyons of the Santa Ana Mountains.

In the right light, Cook's Corner seems to have been plopped down in a world of pastoral beauty. The nearby gorges and valleys are filled with brush. Sycamores and oaks dot the landscape. The roadside tavern once served cowboys and miners. Today, however, the customers are more likely to be tourists and suburban dwellers.

Cook's Corner sits at the juncture of El Toro, Santiago Canyon and Live Oak Canyon roads, near O'Neill Regional Park. It is also at the crossroads of suburbia and the country.

Subdivisions have slowly crept up El Toro Road. This year, construction is set to start on the 266-home Saddleback Meadows project just down the road. The development was the subject of more than two decades of protests and lawsuits.

Another 162 homes, the Saddle Creek and Saddle Crest projects, have been proposed for 593 acres of foothills just north of Cook's Corner. But legal challenges by conservation groups have tied up the plans for years.

A shopping plaza that was to have sprung up across the road from Cook's Corner on Live Oak Canyon Road also was bogged down by lawsuits. The developer eventually prevailed, but the battle apparently sapped the company's will to build. The land is being sold to a government agency that plans to preserve the 25 acres as open space.

Through it all, Cook's Corner has remained virtually untouched. There have been persistent rumors that the place would be leveled for a strip mall, but instead it has become a symbol of the canyons' bucolic past.

"It is a landmark place," said Ray Chandos of the Rural Canyons Conservation Fund, which has fought many of the developments. "I certainly hope it stays the way it is."

Cook's Corner was named after Andrew Jackson Cook, who got about 190 acres of Aliso Canyon in a land trade in 1884. His son, Earl Jack "E.J." Cook, opened a roadside hamburger joint in 1931 and soon after Prohibition ended in 1933, alcohol was added to the menu, and Cook's Corner became a full-fledged bar. In 1946, Cook bought an old mess hall from the Santa Ana Army Air Base, hauled it up El Toro Road, and the tavern was born.

Motorcycle riders discovered the place in the 1970s. It was the perfect stopover from a day's ride in the canyons, a place to grab a beer or two and maybe something to eat. It was a good place to pick a fight too, old-timers say.

"Oh, yeah! They used to throw guys out the window," said Colby Griffin, 30, a former Marine who's been coming to Cook's Corner since he was old enough to drink. "You still see fights now and then, but not as much."

Until the early 1980s, the place was a popular gathering spot for motorcycle gangs, including the Harley-Davidson-riding Mongols. The bikers were ranked according to their rides. Harley-Davidsons parked closest to the entrance. Japanese-made racers were banished to spots farther up the road.

If a Japanese motorcycle ventured anywhere near the U.S.-made hogs, it ran the risk of ending up in nearby Aliso Creek, Griffin and other longtime customers say.

Nowadays, the segregation of motorcycles is not as strictly enforced, and riders are more likely to be weekend warriors: businessmen, attorneys and accountants who live in the surrounding suburbs.

"They stop shaving on Friday morning so they can look tough on Sunday," scoffed Griffin, himself a bicycle rider who belongs to a group called the Mountain Bikers Mafia.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Griffin was nursing a beer at the bar. The place still has the feel of being worlds away, Griffin said, even if it borders some of the newest subdivisions in Orange County.

Bartender Peasley, 28, said Cook's Corner reminded her of Seeley Lake, the Montana town where she grew up, 45 minutes from Missoula. Besides, she said, "I couldn't work in Newport Beach. I am not tall enough, and I am not blond."

Sitting at a picnic table outside was John O'Neill, 54, a retired businessman. He owns a BMW motorcycle, but on this day he had driven his truck to Cook's Corner for the "new and improved" pastrami sandwich.

"I like what Pete has done with the place," O'Neill said. "This place could really be a destination spot, a good business."

Katelaris smiled proudly. The 52-year-old Greek immigrant owns a chain of restaurants in the Inland Empire called Cowboy Burgers & BBQ. He and partner Papacharalambous, 38, bought Cook's Corner and the 12 acres it sits on from Frank DeLuna for $2.6 million in September. DeLuna had bought the property from Novella Morales in 1988 for $1.3 million.

Both DeLuna and Morales spoke of developing the land, but neither ever did. Katelaris and Papacharalambous said they would like to turn Cook's Corner into a "recreation center" with better food and ambience, but wouldn't elaborate.

For now, they've hired a new cook and are focused on cleaning up the place. They've ordered 170 new bar stools, and the graffiti-scarred bathrooms are next on the list of improvements.

"We are keeping it the same," said Katelaris, "but making it nicer."

SOUTH: Cook's rolls on
New owners aim to improve rustic roadhouse in Trabuco Canyon.

Cook's Corner, a 78-year- old, rustic roadhouse at Trabuco Canyon's mouth, was purchased for $2.6 million two months ago – and the new owners want to kill off a rumor that has swirled for years.

"I think everybody thought it would be demolished – I think they were scared," said Christal Katelari, who along with her dad, Pete Katelaris, and their friend, Costas Papacharalambous, now own what is likely Orange County's longest continually operated restaurant and the 12 acres of rolling chaparral it squats on.

"We are here to improve it, to keep Cook's Corner," said her dad. The "s" was dropped from his daughter's last name per Greek tradition.

Owner Frank de Luna had said for years that he wanted to sell the eatery frequented by longhaired men (and women) on Harley-Davidsons, suited businessmen, yuppies, bicycle riders and locals from the nearby canyons. Everybody figured the land was too valuable for an aging shack.

As house painter Chris Manfredi, 44, of Orange put it: "Who's going to spend $3 million on a bar?"

Pete Katelaris, apparently. Katelaris, 51, lives two miles away off of Santiago Canyon Road and first tried to buy Cook's in 1988. But de Luna, at $1.3 million, outbid him by a hundred grand. Katelaris didn't know until recently that Cook's was for sale again.

Katelaris – who owns a four-restaurant chain, Cowboy Burgers & B.B.Q. – believed he saw a good business opportunity and a chance to own Orange County history. He asked friend Papacharalambous of Mission Viejo if he wanted in.

Papacharalambous said the partners are after the "same rustic look, same atmosphere – just better."

Dishes have replaced paper plates, $1,000-plus was spent on exterminators, heat lamps were plopped outside and rotting picnic benches have been replaced. The menu will change. A tie-up post and a trough for horses, and a rack for bicycles are planned, too.

Pete Katelaris also intends to ask the county about adding a large barbecue pit for tri-tip and ribs. He also wants to overhaul the restrooms and spruce up – but not replace – the creaky-looking building.

Even before the sale went through, Papacharalambous started hanging out at Cook's, talking with the patrons. At some point, he would say: "I'm one of the new owners, what do you think we should do here?"

Some, like locksmith Phil Blakesley, always had an inkling Cook's would survive.

He was eating a sandwich and throwing back a mug of Michelob Ultra on the patio the other day. His Harley waited out front.

Holy rollers! A priest blesses bikes in annual rites

Hundreds of motorcycle riders turn out at Cook's Corner in Trabuco Canyon for barbecue, beer and blessings.

By MATHEW PADILLA

Heat wave prompts electricity emergency

Scattered power outages are reported in Orange County as demand increases.

Blessing of the Bikes