Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Christine Clark serves sandwiches during the lunch hour at Johnny's Northside Grill in Los Gatos.
Homestyle barbecue food is a Mesa family tradition
By Suzanne Cristallo
Johnny's Northside Grill in Los Gatos is a place to bring the kids. Parents can sit and have a dinner of barbecue ribs or chicken on the covered back porch while watching their youngsters shoot hoops on a warm spring evening. The atmosphere around the place is reminiscent of the Los Gatos that owner Johnny Mesa remembers when he grew up.
"I loved going to Lexington and taking a swim with my dog," he recalls of his childhood in the 1970s. "You could do that then. It was a very relaxed place."
Mesa, 30, has lived all of his life in the town where his dad, Johnny Sr., ran two restaurants--the Gazebo, where California Cafe now stands; and the Grog and Sirloin, where Double D's Sports Grille is today. The younger Mesa got his start in the restaurant business by washing dishes for his dad at age 9.
Johnny's Northside Grill is the culmination of his experience. It's a casual, friendly place where customers can order salad, beans and a beer, then shoot the breeze with the bartender.
Sports are a focal point. Pennants and memorabilia adorn the walls, and televisions--inside and out--are tuned to the latest games. Mesa holds horseshoe tournaments for his customers in the summer, engraving winners' names on a perpetual trophy he made for the wall over the bar. Los Gatos High School teams know him for the banquets he caters.
It's big food Mesa serves. His staff of 15 prepares feeds for construction companies that like to keep their workers happy with barbecues several times a year.
Whatever the barbecue occasion, Mesa hauls to the party site a mobile unit that smokes meat in the front section and barbecues it over mesquite or fruit wood in an open pit in the back. One of his specialties is Hawaiian-style pork butts. The meat is wrapped in tea leaves and slowly cooked for eight hours with cabbage, then rolled in tortillas and served as a finger food with pineapple salsa. He also offers combos of barbecued chicken and tri-tip with two side dishes, French bread and salad for $15.50 a person.
All of the barbecued dishes are available in the restaurant, together with burgers, cheese steaks, vegetarian dishes and a different soup every day--clam chowder is the choice on Friday. Wednesdays are Mexican food night with freshly made tamales, rice and beans. Margaritas by the pitcher and Mexican beer are on special.
"I think we have the best chicken and ribs in town," boasts Mesa, who runs most of the catering jobs while depending on Jose Gonzalez, his cook for five years, to oversee the kitchen.
The building that houses the restaurant is theoretically old. It was Flaafschi's many years ago, then Boyd's, then Penny's Place, a favorite with pool players through the 1980s, then New Penny's and finally Johnny's. Johnny Sr. started and turned over the restaurant to his son when he, Johnny Sr., entered the real estate business. Mesa helped rip apart the old building after he found it was held up, mostly, by the bar along the south wall. "I don't know how it survived the '89 earthquake," he marvels. The totally renovated building opened its doors in 1992.
Mesa is sold on Los Gatos as the place he and his wife, Carrie, want to live. "I would never give up living here--this place is one of the best places in the world," he says.
The biggest problem he faces because of that popular notion is finding help. "Advertising doesn't work. Nobody answers the ad." It's strictly word of mouth, he says, which is the means that brought him the great staff he has today.
Johnny's Northside Grill, 532 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Open daily 11 a.m.-midnight; kitchen closes at 10 p.m., 408.395.6908.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
