R E A L E S TAT E
Yes Men Bob and Gregg Smith helm Smith Brothers Restaurants.
THE SMITH BROTHERS WON’T LET GUESTS DOWN AT THEIR EATERIES
22 | ARROYO | 02.21
the old Chef’s Inn, which had been there forever. It was a block from my house, and here we had been looking all over Southern California. It was a Friday night. I looked at the parking lot; it didn’t look very full. I parked my car and walked in and boy, it was ghastly.” The owner was looking to sell the place, and a deal was quickly struck. After a few months of renovation, Reflections opened. “It was an instant success,” Gregg says. “Thank God. It was a steakhouse. We also had in those days the famous salad bar. A full (liquor) bar. Live music in the lounge seven nights a week. It was the place to be in La Cañada, by far.” This successful activity was a prelude to the brothers’ triumphant campaign in Pasadena. “I moved to Pasadena in 1976. We were very involved in the community. Why go anywhere else?” Gregg muses. “We said, ‘Let’s stick right here in Pasadena.’ We can visit all three restaurants every night if we want to, every day if we want to. We can smell it. We can taste it. We can keep our fingers on it.” Ten years later, in 1984, they opened Parkway Grill in Pasadena. “That was huge,” Gregg says. “I hired the sous chef and the assistant pastry chef from (Wolfgang Puck’s) Spago in Hollywood.” Aptly, over the years, the Parkway has been referred to as “the Spago of Pasadena” because of its high
quality of the food and its role as a society hub where local tastemakers and celebrities mingle. The venerable institution has never lost its edge. “It’s been around for 37 years,” Gregg says. “In restaurant years, like dog years, by now it should have been five different restaurants. Our business is very strong there. We take great pride in that.” The chefs, Servando Campos and Martin Salinas, have been dedicated to the restaurant for decades. With the opening success of Parkway Grill, the brothers scouted the South Lake Avenue business district to open a more accessible venue, Crocodile Café, in 1987. “Parkway Grill was so popular. We said, ‘Let’s open a more casual café with the wood-burning pizzas and a great hamburger,’” he says. It proved to be another immediately popular attraction. “There were some weekends in that small, tiny little restaurant, we would do 1,000 meals a day,” Smith recalls. The café’s success attracted an investor with bigger ambitions, and the Smith brothers expanded the operation into 16 restaurants in five states. Smith says the venture was a logistical nightmare. “That’s when we thought, ‘No one knows us in Colorado, no one knows us in Arizona or Nevada or Washington State. Let’s just stick to Pasadena. Why
Photo by Dana P. Bouton
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arkway Grill. Arroyo Chophouse. Smitty’s Grill. These three restaurants are iconic, but not everyone knows or understands that they are products of the ingenuity, imagination, hard work and persistence of Gregg and Bob Smith, otherwise known as the Smith brothers. They are sons of the Arroyo and have quietly built their impressive empire in Pasadena over four decades. In an extended chat with Gregg Smith, the whole — largely untold story — began to unfold, and with it in comes the history of fine dining in the area. Born in Los Angeles, the Smith brothers — Bob, 78, and Gregg, 73 — were raised in La Cañada, where their architect father moved the family in 1950. Bob pursued a career in dentistry, while it was Gregg who was drawn to hospitality and the restaurant business. Gregg recalls the circumstances surrounding the 1974 opening of their first venture, Reflections in La Cañada. “My brother, at the time, was a dentist,” Gregg says. “I was the restaurant guy. My brother was mostly on the finance end and also the operations, but he had his office in the high desert. I was boots on the ground.” They were determined to open a restaurant, but finding an appropriate location was challenging. “I was traveling with my father all over Southern California trying to find a location, and one night I was going to see my parents in La Cañada and I drove by
BY FRIER MCCOLLISTER
