KNX – Mike Roy’s Weekend Cooking Thing – September 24, 1966 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Things that aren’t around anymore – that distinction probably most aptly fits the restaurant scene in just about any major city. L.A. was no different. In 1966 a short-lived eatery in the San Fernando Valley sprang up on the corner of Roscoe and Topanga in Canoga Park called Chili Olé – it may have constituted the first, or at least one of the first, Sports Bars in L.A. – the specialty was naturally Chili. The investors were all from Sports circles in the L.A., among them Pete Rozelle who was at the time Commissioner of Football.
Whether or not Chili Olé was a hit among Sports fans and Chili Heads may be why the eatery didn’t last the decade. It was then named The Jailhouse before becoming San Marcos and later a string of pizza joints, eventually fading from the scene entirely.
But at the time it was a big deal, at least to listeners of KNX in Southern California as well as local sports figures and fans. The opening featured a virtual who’s who in College Football along with a number of other sports teams around the Southern California area.
Since this was a weekend show, there wasn’t much in the way of recipes and after the Chili Olé segment, there’s an interview with Ralph Greene who was a well-known caterer around Hollywood circles and who had catered an affair a few nights earlier on the set of the TV series Peyton Place. Greene, who boasts about his company and it’s clientele runs down a list of what was served on the 20th Century Fox lot for the Peyton Place dinner. This was the status of society eating in the mid-1960s – strange there was no French wine or small vineyards represented as they are now – but the Wine industry was different then too.
For an idea of where we were on an epicurean scale – here’s Mike Roy’s Weekend Cooking Thing as it was broadcast on September 24, 1966 from KNX-AM/FM in Los Angeles.
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