DINING HISTORY
El Chorro: An old friend gets a new life By Bill Macomber If you’d old enough to want to read this, El Chorro may have been the first fancy restaurant your parents took you to when you were barely old enough to dress in nice clothes and sit still for dinner. Sticky buns. Mesquite-burning fireplace. Cowboy atmosphere. Sound familiar? Restaurants come and go, but El Chorro is a Paradise Valley institution. Like many institutions, it needs periodical revamping. That’s what’s happening now. Owners Joe and Evie Miller retired this year after running the place for decades. Its future in doubt, the eatery needed an angel. Jacquie Dorrance, a longtime Paradise Valley resident and philanthropist, stepped up. She bought the restaurant in June 2009. Dorrance is renovating El Chorro and with operating partners Kristy and Tim Moore and chef Charles Kassels plans to reopen on Valentine’s Day.
Renovation details include enhancing existing buildings and expanding views of Camelback and Mummy mountains from the enormous patio. Dining spaces indoors and out are being enlarged. What would a renovation be without adding Wi-Fi? Plans also call for an El Chorro wedding pavilion and, eventually, an El Chorro charity. The feel will still be Sonoran with the familiar, laid-back Arizona atmosphere the place always had. “I’m a longtime Paradise Valley resident who has celebrated many special occasions at El Chorro,” Dorrance says. “I consider it a privilege to be able to preserve this historic Arizona landmark, ensuring its legacy lives on for another generation. My family and I have always tried to take part in meaningful and community-minded projects, but I consider El Chorro the icing on the cake.” The property that became El Chorro was built by John C. Lincoln as Judson School for Girls in 1934 on an 11-acre parcel. It’s safe to say there weren’t many neighbors to complain about construction noise. It was in the middle of nowhere. The more adventurous among early Judson girls might appreciate the fact that their schoolroom became the main bar of the restaurant.
the eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon. New to the menu are a New York strip steak with bordelaise, red chili mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and corn relish, and panroasted duck. Dorrance says she wanted El Chorro to feel familiar to the longtime Arizona families who built memories there. So now for the most important facts about the renovation and reopening. The bar will remain the same. And yes. The sticky buns stay. TOP: El Chorro entrance, circa 1980; El Chorro kitchen, 1941 LEFT: An early aerial shot of El Chorro; Ladies in waiting, mid 1950s, hats mandatory BELOW: Judging by the clothes, these El Charro visitors were caught in the bar in the late 1940s.
In 1937, Jan and Mark Gruber bought the school and turned it into a lodge and dining room. Staffers often stayed on for years, including Joe Miller, who started as a bartender in 1952. He met his wife, Evie, on the job. They bought the place in 1973 and almost immediately started expanding it. With El Chorro changing hands, the menu is getting an update. Kassels, who worked at Boulders and the Westin Kierland, is keeping most of the crowd-pleasers like the mesquite-grilled rack of Colorado lamb and
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