32 I SAN PEDRO TODAY I JUNE 2015
Lou (III), Lou Jr. and Josh Roupoli
LOU JR., LOU (III) AND JOSH ROUPOLI LOU’S FLOOR COVERING Thirty-five years ago, Lou Roupoli Jr., 60, couldn’t have foreseen that today his business, which he runs with sons Josh and Lou (III), would have grown the way it has, not only specializing in providing beautiful carpets, hardwood and tiled floors for homes, but that remodeling as a general contracting license would take up half of its expanding business. Hard to believe that this all resulted from feeling bored from his 10-days a month job as a firefighter in 1975, which prompted Roupoli to join a friend in earning extra cash installing floors, and then earning his flooring and general contracting license doing bath and kitchen remodels. Josh, 30, emphasizes how seamlessly the family works together, “My dad, my brother and I do a lot of different things together; we are best friends at home and at work. So having that camaraderie and flexibility in working with family has been really great.” The younger Lou, 26, noted that it’s seeing something from inception to installation that makes him interested in coming to work everyday. “Every project is different and creative in its own way,” he says. And because of that, Roupoli and sons take great care in educating customers on the products and getting to know their needs. “We often become friends with our customers who know that they could trust us to do a great job and deliver quality products, and it’s common that we get repeat customers,” says the elder Roupoli, who notes that recently Josh gave an estimate to a customer whose floor was done by Roupoli 30 years prior. The younger Roupolis agree that while the flexibility in working with their father gives them a lot of leeway on certain things, he can also be very hard on them, “getting on their case” faster than he would anyone else, but that passionate discussions subside as quickly as they arise. Today, they pride themselves on Lou (III) having full control of technology at the shop with digitized paperwork, mobile payment via iPads, and social media to promote the business; and Josh continuing the core value of delivering excellent personalized customer service, which he’s been taking from dad’s cue for the past 13 years. “We realize how important family is… not just my sons (and daughters), we see our staff and customers as family too and we strive to have great relationships with them,” says Roupoli. “It seems only yesterday that the boys were just little toddlers running around the shop. But now they are running the business, which brings me great pride.” -- Lou’s Floor Covering, 1427 W. 8th Street (Weymouth Corners), (310) 548-5557, www.lousfloor.com
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JOE AND JOEY UTOVAC UTRO’S CAFÉ Quietude was awash at Utro’s Café at 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, but according to Joey Utovac, the lunch hour was pretty quiet at this isolated eatery at the southern-most end of Ports O’ Call. “Our location is pretty tucked away… one of the challenges is to let everyone know that this is where we are,” says Joey, 34, son of Joe Utovac, 69, who’s been the principal owner since 1976. It’s quite the departure from the Crest Café that the senior Utovac took over from the “little Irish lady” Leah Blackeman in 1976. That café was a gastropub – emphasis on the pub part – that was similar to Cheers. Many blue-collared Joey and Joe Utovac longshoremen (Sr. worked as an operator of the Evergreen terminal crane) and mechanics, as well as businessmen, gathered at the Crest Café to shoot the breeze, throw back a few and get into rowdy good spirits into the late-night hours. Both father and son echoed that everyone knew what the original café was like: a gathering place where people had fun drinking and catching up. “When people talk [about the old place], they say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember Utro’s – I went there all the time,’ ” says Joey. Locals hold fond memories of the original bar that was located at 22nd and Mesa. The only reminders inside the café of the boisterous Cheers-like days are many framed caricaturized illustrations of the Utovac family and many of its local patrons at the old location, and the many tools of the longshoresmen trade. While Joe does not take his son’s dependability and trustworthiness for granted (he’s “never disagreed with anything [Joey’s] done”), there is no question that Joe and his wife Cheryl remain staunch about maintaining the calm status quo for the café, which rarely sees its 50-capacity establishment full during its daytime-only hours, unless it’s rented out for a private event. Part of it is they want to maintain only what they can handle, it’s not a rowdy bar crowd getting off work at 6 p.m. like it used to be in the 1970s and ‘80s. Joey respects his parents’ adverse nature to risk and does his best to oblige their wishes, but that’s not to say he doesn’t have ideas of his own. “There are so many ideas and things I would do differently [to the current café] to drum up more business,” says the younger Utovac. He’s frank about not completely having his own voice about the operations of the eatery, even as his parents get on in years, but maybe some youthful energy is what Utro’s Café needs to bring it back to its glory days. -- Utro’s Café, Berth 73 (at the Ghost Fish metallic art installation), (310) 547-5022