For the past few years, more often than not, you could find Alan Strong perched on a folding chair on break from his janitorial duties at La Placa Family Bakery, sitting under the redwoods, gazing out at the one-story restaurant with the fountain on its patio, across Highway 9.
At the time, it was a fine dining Italian joint called Casa Nostra. As he’d sit there, he’d reflect on the restaurant he once ran at the location.
And now, he’s returned to open Guild Kitchen: Act III in the rustic digs.
“This time, I’m relying on a new workforce—and the new workforce these days is not like what it used to be,” said Strong, during an interview following lunch service at the smoking hut in the parking lot. “I have to be careful. I have to make sure I can make payroll. I have to make sure I pay my taxes.”
Strong, 62, has yet to unveil his complete food and beverage program. He said it will include a foundation of Mexican food (which he has been cooking since his youth), specials from the recipe book of Ciao Bella (the restaurant that inhabited the space prior to Casa Nostra) and farm-to-table classics (including beef from his sister’s farm on the Silicon Valley side of the mountain).
He’s testing out recipes, getting a new crew together, and slowly assembling the vision he’d been mulling over for months. The bootstrapping mentality is very Silicon Valley.
“I did this with no money and a $30 prepaid flip-phone,” he said. “US Foods has fronted me $7,500 in product.”
And while Strong’s humble soft-launch may be unassuming to say the least, he has a few big things going for him—deep ties to the San Lorenzo Valley, and a no-nonsense approach to food service. Around here that counts for a lot.
“The reason I called this ‘Guild Kitchen: Act III’ is in honor of my parents,” he said. “I want to finish what they started.”
Listening to Strong tell his backstory is like tracing the history of the region, one development at a time. He recalls growing up on Aptos Beach Drive (after moving to the seaside community in 1974), skateboarding before the kick-flip was invented.
“It was when the first urethane heels came out,” he said, adding he practiced seven days a week. “That’s how I met Jack O’Neill.”
Back then, Strong describes how he built his own board out of oak, and how he joined a freestyle competition that resulted in a sponsorship with the iconic wetsuit innovator’s Santa Cruz company.
“He was like, ‘If you will ride one of the boards from my shop, I’m going to give you one,’” he said. “I actually really ended up loving the Banzai board.”
Strong remembers how the local skaters initially didn’t get the recognition of their SoCal counterparts. “And we should have!” he said. “This was way before swimming pools.”
These were the days of the “Rio Rats” hanging out at Pixie Plaza, penny candy at Rio Del Mar grocery and fishing for crab off the concrete ship.
“I would come home literally every day with two five-gallon buckets of Dungeness and rock crabs,” he said. “I used to go down to Germano’s Pizza and play pinball. Back then it was a dime again.”
In the mid-’70s, his family moved to Brookdale, to a house that—when they arrived—exuded “peace, love and granola” from the hippie days of the prior few years.
“We wanted to open a restaurant,” said Strong, sharing how he went along on location scouting trips. “I’d actually drive around with my parents and look at all these places.”
The first one they locked-onto was the Town and Country Lodge; but they didn’t get it. There was a Boulder Creek option that seemed too far out of town.
In the end, they settled on the site of the current Cowboy Diner, along Highway 9 in Felton—where Arlene and Patrick Means had been operating an eatery. They called it the Felton Guild.
“We did Mexican food there,” he said. When Strong was 12 years old, his dad told him, “You’re going to make a dollar an hour—and like it.”
Strong said his father taught him how to cook. His mom focused on serving food.
Over the years groups like the Dirty Butter Jug Band, Jill Croston (better known as Lacy J. Dalton), Shagbark Hickory, Boogie Bruce & Champagne Charlie, Lloyd Driggs and Will Strickland all serenaded customers.
The wood shop next door (owned by Harold and Carol Alldis) fashioned their seats and butterfly doors. Meanwhile, their daughter worked in the restaurant.
“She was very magnetic,” Strong said. “Just a sweetheart.”
Locals even made plates out of pottery. Strong said this really functioned like a guild of skilled craftspeople.
“A guild means a community of people that all do certain things so they can survive,” he said. “Even the toilet seats were made out of mahogany.”
His parents had stumbled on quite a successful formula.
“It got so popular that people would line up outside that place like they were going to a movie,” he said. “So we opened up the ‘Guild Kitchen: Act II’ in Boulder Creek.”
Things went pretty well with the second restaurant for about a year.
“One night I was at the Felton Guild—I went there to eat with my friends,” he recalled, noting his dad would always work the salad bar. “He had a stroke right in front of me.”
He said his mom wanted to take his father to the hospital, but his father initially refused. After returning to their house in Brookdale, emergency responders were ultimately able to take him to Dominican Hospital.
“He never (fully) recuperated,” said Strong, explaining this spelled the end not just of the second restaurant, but the first one, too. “We kept them open for a little while longer, and it was too much of a burden.” And, he said, one of the employees ripped them off too.
For a while, Strong ran a Mexican food operation in Brookdale—starting at 15. He found out who his biological father was the next year.
In the ensuing years, Strong worked at the Boulder House, which had opened where the “Act II” building had been.
“I’m not even 21 yet, and that place had a full liquor license,” he said, explaining he was good friends with the guys running the place. “Their parents ended up closing it down, because we were having too good of a time.” All the recipes are still in his head, he said.
Strong raced BMX while in junior high at a time when the sport was in its infancy. The way he tells it, he was picked for the Twins league baseball team, in part, because of an incident where he was throwing acorns at passing vehicles.
And, he talks about riding some of the first snowboards ever made by sport pioneer Tom Sims in Tahoe—with Tom Sims.
“We’d hike up the back side of Heavenly and ski back down the runs and the ski patrol would chase us,” Strong said. “We’d say, ‘One day it would be in the Olympics’…and now it is.”
Back then it wasn’t all about doing a million spins and other technical maneuvers, like in the current X-Games.
“It was more important to be graceful. It was more like surfing,” he said, adding Tom would rag on him for dragging his hand on the snow during turns. “I just kinda liked it, because it was like touching a wave.”
And don’t even get Strong started on the boisterous days of Ciao Bella.
The best manager there was a woman who went by “Agent 99,” he said, adding he began cooking there during the days—but had to clear out before the theatrics began for dinner service (“There were five stripper poles.”)
Eventually, Strong began running the entire restaurant, serving Italian food and American-style breakfast and lunch—featuring magic shows and belly dancers on the weekend.
“I just loved that we had this incredible team,” he said. “Nobody did drugs.”
But, Strong began to face financial problems. He said the IRS even showed up with guns at one point.
“I was so worn out,” he said. “I didn’t like being in a position where I couldn’t pay people.”
In the end, he had to basically give the place away to the owners of Casa Nostra. (They paid thousands of dollars in back rent.)
But when those partners split, Strong was able to get the building back. It took months to bring the space up to code.
On Feb. 8, Guild Kitchen: Act III opened its doors.
He said in the coming days he’s going to begin introducing Ciao Bella classics like “The Valdostana,” “The Rack of Lamb,” “The Salcice” and “The Carbonera.” For now, he’s doing Salisbury steak with eggs, fried egg sandwich, the hamburger and fresh green salad, as part of a limited “Dreamers” menu.
“People believe in me because I’m straightforward and honest with them,” Strong said. “I’m not a quitter…The only thing that’s going to stop me is if I die in my sleep.”
Guild Kitchen: Act III is open seven days a week, 9am-4pm, at 9217 Highway 9 in Ben Lomond.
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