The First Bull Run

Before The Golden Bull, There Was Eddie’s Chili Verde

On a warm afternoon in August this year, Don Cranford spotted a married couple standing outside his restaurant, The Golden Bull in Santa Monica Canyon. The husband was taking photos of the Bull’s sign and exterior, so Cranford went out to say hello. Having owned the Bull since 1984, he has seen all kinds of people enter the establishment, best known for its steak and cocktails. But he quickly realized that his visitors were not ordinary tourists. Bill Kane, with his wife, Sylvia, had traveled all the way from their home in Tempe, Arizona to see Cranford. They arrived harboring a bombshell of information, backed up by vintage photographs from the late 1930s and early 1940s. Back then, The Golden Bull was a restaurant called Eddie’s Chili Verde, opened by Kane’s uncle, Eddie Kane. ‘I didn’t know the restaurant existed until I found the menu and pictures,’ Kane, 79, told the Palisadian-Post from his Tempe home three months after his L.A. visit. ‘I found the pictures first and it didn’t say where it was.’ Kane had discovered the Eddie’s ephemera in 2000. Originally belonging to his father, William Kane, Sr., it had been boxed away at Kane’s brother’s house in their native Marlbrough, Massachusetts. ‘My father died in 1981, but Eddie’s material stayed in his house in Marlbrough until my mother died in November 1987,’ Kane said. ‘I only got a cursory look at the material at that time and it went to my brother’s house. ‘I didn’t get interested in genealogy until about 2000, when I wrote a book on the family history. It was then that I remembered the material that was at my brother’s.’ Kane recalled his initial conversation with Cranford. ‘This guy came out and said, ‘Can I help you?’ I said, ‘My uncle used to own this place.’ He said, ‘Your uncle?’ So I told him the story, and he said, ‘I never heard that!’ I brought in the photos. We sat down and we talked a while. He said, ‘You know what? I remember getting my liquor license and it was in the name of Eddie and Jean Kane.” Cranford pored over Kane’s photos; images he had never seen before. ‘I knew it was called Eddie’s Chili Verde because that was on the liquor permit,’ Cranford continued, ‘but I never heard anything about the restaurant. And I couldn’t figure out when Eddie’s was here. I was amazed because I had never seen pictures of the restaurant’s inside. And back then, it was just one building.’ One point of confusion remained. The Bull’s current owner had sensed that an Italian eatery once existed in the building. ‘When I first came here,’ Cranford said, ‘we still had all these Chianti bottles all along the ledge of the fireplace.’ As local historian Randy Young would discover, there was an explanation for this as well. Until recently, the only restaurant known to occupy 170 W. Channel Rd. was the original Ted’s Grill, owned and operated by Ted and Mabel Pemberton, before it relocated to 146 Entrada. (A section of the now-defunct second location, dormant but still standing, remains the Canyon’s oldest structure.) Copies of Kane’s materials regarding Eddie’s Chili Verde were given to Young, a founding member of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. He then looked through old phone directories, newspapers, and records at Building and Safety downtown to solidify his knowledge of the history of the original edifice at 170 W. Channel. ‘The big revelation,’ Young said, ‘is that it’s been a restaurant for a very long time.’   The building began life as Palisades and Canyon Property, the branch office of Santa Monica real estate agent Frank E. Bundy (yes, that Bundy’). Bundy obtained a building permit in 1923 and, in 1924, construction was completed. The next tenant, from 1933 through 1938, was Ted’s Grill, followed by Eddie Kane’s restaurant. ‘What I believe happened,’ Young said, ‘is that Ted Pemberton gave up the building after the 1938 flood, and that Eddie’s went in there, in late 1938. The liquor permit was granted in early 1939.’ When the flood swept through Santa Monica Canyon in 1938, it hit hard. ‘On Short Street, a barn came down,’ Young said. ‘It jammed the road like a dam and all the debris went on top of this barn. They had to rebuild the road [West Channel] and build a bridge over that chasm so the businesses could survive. The street used to be a channel (hence the street’s name), but it got clogged up and buried in six feet of mud.’ In the aftermath of the flood, the business district was re-developed: trees were planted and the streets were paved. At 170 W. Channel Rd., an eatery called the Pizza Kitchen (which may explain the Chianti bottles Cranford had discovered), later existed in 1947 and 1948, followed by The Golden Bull, which opened in 1950. An extension to the original building, which today houses the bar room, was built a year later. When Eddie Kane opened his restaurant in the Canyon, the menu promised chili and spaghetti as well as hamburger, fried onions, Italian meatballs and spaghetti sandwiches. Customers could order Sunfreeze ice cream for dessert. By all accounts, Eddie Kane was a colorful character. ‘He was my exotic uncle in California,’ recalled Kane, who grew up in Marlbrough. ‘He was kind of my hero, a cousin that I knew, but I didn’t know. I always looked forward to when he came. He always told me stories, and he was a great chef. He always cooked meals for the extended family.’ Kane traced the history of his Uncle Eddie’s career as a restaurateur. ‘In the ’20s,’ he said, ‘he went to New York and opened a diner in New Rochelle,’ Kane said. ‘The Pullman diners were very popular. But he lost [the diner] in 1930 after the stock market crash in the Great Depression. He told me that he rode the rails west because he didn’t have any money. He stopped in Texas, he didn’t like that. He stopped in Tombstone. He spent a month or so there and decided, ‘No, I’m going to keep going west.’ And he ended up in Santa Monica. That was in 1931. He opened his first restaurant in May 1932,’ on Ashland Avenue near the beach. Eddie sent photos of the restaurant to his New England relatives. But they never knew about the second restaurant, in Santa Monica Canyon Some of the photos Kane discovered featured members of the Tommy Tucker Band, who apparently frequented Eddie’s after gigs. ‘Eddie was a very fun-loving person,’ Kane said, ‘and he and Jean seemed to have a close connection with musicians. Some of them stayed at their apartment building.’ Eddie and Jean moved to Palm Springs in 1946 because of Jean’s asthma. She died in November 1968. Eddie died on July 5, 1974 of complications from a brain aneurysm. ‘He was hospitalized, and he died within two weeks,’ Kane said. ‘I went out and handled all of the funeral arrangements and closed up his house. That’s when I found all the materials.’ Kane relocated to Arizona in 1971, where he worked for 15 years as the director of economic planning and development for the state. He worked another 15 years as the director of education for Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona, retiring at the end of 1997. Upon visiting The Golden Bull last summer, Kane had this initial impression: ‘It’s so much older now. From the pictures, it looked like a desert location.’ The building that houses the Bull has survived not only flooding, but the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and it thrives today on the appeal of its old school, Sinatra-era flavor. For Cranford, the Kanes’ visit this year was more proof that even after his nearly half-century association with the Bull, the surprises keep coming. ‘It continues to amaze me,’ Cranford said.