Locke, California: A Chinese Town Known For A Restaurant Called "Al The Wops."
"A town built by Chinese for Chinese."
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THIS TIME LAST YEAR…
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this time of year (and in autumn) it smells like my Nina DeeDee’s 100-year-old Craftsman in Stockton. It’s a scent memory that both comforts me and makes me cry.
I need a new word for ramshackle. Although ramshackle is the perfect word to paint you a picture, it also gives off bad vibes. I want you to associate the word with something delightful and intentional. And then you’ll picture a town that still resembles a past Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta. Friendly TNR cats stretch out to capture sun rays on their tender bellies and collect treats directly from your hand before darting down residential alleyways with wooden planked walkways. This is the town of Locke. Have you ever been?
The California Alien Land Act of 1913 barred Chinese from owning land. The state Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1952, but the act's legacy persisted in Locke, of all places. Locke was the first town in the United States “built by Chinese for Chinese,” and is now the nation's last rural Chinese town in the United States. Individual lots couldn't be sold without the costly legal work of subdividing the land.
In 2004, long time residents and local business people were finally are able to purchase land in Locke.
According to Ping Lee's recollection in the book "Bitter Melon," Lee Bing came from China over to the United States in 1893 to work in the Chicago World’s Fair. But, it didn’t work out like that. While he did end up in Chicago, he never got to work at the fair. Instead, he was shipped to San Francisco. He made his way up through the Delta to find farm work.
Lee Bing found himself in Locke when the gambling house he owned in the nearby town of Walnut Grove was consumed in a fire in 1915. The entire Chinatown went up in flames! But, much like so many other immigrants, Lee Bing had to keep moving forward and immediately set to work building his new life and this new town. While leading the effort to settle and build up the town of Locke, he also managed the town’s rental agreements with George Locke.
Lee Bing built six two-story buildings for $1,200 each. One of the buildings was a sundries general store and one was a noodle house. The noodle house would become Al’s.
The town was built up in 1915 along the Sacramento River on land owned by George Locke. The town of 50 buildings that flank the narrow Main Street cover two blocks and looks much like it did more than 100 years ago. The town was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in August 1970, and became a National Historic Landmark in 1990. Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency purchased (and operates) the town of Locke from a Hong Kong based developer in 2001.
By now I feel like almost everyone knows about the restaurant called, Al The Wops. Except for maybe those fucking people who move to a new town and within the first month of moving to said new town they make that new town their entire personality, labeling every place they visit a “hidden gem.”
Al the Wop’s website states:
Al the Wop’s was constructed in 1915 by Lee Bing and three partners who ran a Chinese restaurant here in Locke, California. In 1934 Al Adami and an associate came up the river from Ryde to become the first non-Chinese business in town. Later Al purchased the building from Lee Bing and continued in the business until his death in 1961.
When Adami died, Jack Molino bought the business as an investment. Molino was a pear farmer in nearby Walnut Grove, a patron of the business and a friend to Adami. Molino wasn’t just a pear farmer though, he was also a car salesman and had some other side hustles. When his nephew, “Chobby” Jensen, came to Molino and asked for a job at the car lot, Molino instead handed him the keys to Al’s and said, “Welcome to your new life.”
Chobby Jensen worked alongside the bartender Ralph Santos Sr., who Molino had given 25% of the bar ownership. Santos was already the bartender at Al’s for seven years before Adami’s passing and knew the business more than Jensen did and Molino wanted to. Ralph Santos Sr. passed away in 2011.
Richard “Bubba” Wall - who had been working at Al’s since he was a teenager - and his wife, Judie, would become owners after Santos’ passing. Judie would become sole owner after Richard’s sudden death in 2015 and she stayed the owner until 2020.
It was listed for sale in 2021 by Mission Peak Brokers for $300K (including the land and liquor license), right in the middle of the pandemic. Ads announcing the sale stipulated a cash-only transaction. It went into the hands of a group of partners looking for investment opportunities, specifically in the Delta where they like to boat. Chris Menke, Eric Heath, Fritz Keith, Greg Wellman and Morgan Thornbush formed a partnership to purchase the business, building included.
After they [the partnership] closed the deal and took over, they shut Al’s down for several weeks while they thoroughly cleaned and renovated the interior. They carefully removed all of the pictures and memorabilia from the walls after recording the locations with a camera. The place was given a thorough cleaning, and the objects were returned to their original locations. So, now Al’s looks virtually the same as it has for the last few decades and is a lot cleaner. They are bringing menu items back slowly.
They have vowed to keep the place as original as possible.
Mami (my mother) and I tried to patronize the restaurant nearly a decade ago - the restaurant is known for hosting large groups of E. Clampus Vitus aka Clampers and having a plethora of Harley Davidsons parked out front on any given weekend - and we chickened out. We walked in the dark bar and immediately turned around and walked out. Only having the courage to return seven years later on a Monday at 11:10AM; ten minutes after they opened for the day.
The disorientation from walking out from the sunlight, through the red saloon doors with diamond-shaped glass windows, and into the cavernous bar is comedic. There’s a full bar. A vast bar. An old bar. Every inch of the legendary tavern is cluttered with a medley of ephemera, license plates, neon signs, taxidermy, and innumerous dollar bills dangling from the ceiling. Supposedly mimicking the neckties that business men wore and Al used to cut off, then hang from the ceiling. All of it keeping Mami entertained until the food showed up.
There’s also a back area where there are some rustic picnic-like tables to commune, but you’re going to get better service if you sit at the bar. I found this out when Mami chose to sit at the bar. And if you know Mami, that decision, while it being the best decision, was still a shock. Sitting at the bar means more engagement with people. Mami doesn’t like when people uninvitedly engage with her.
Johnny O. was our barkeep and also our attentive server. The menu contains the greatest hits of your local watering hole: wings, onion rings, burgers. Then there were some menu items that delightfully surprised me: steaks, a fish and chips that wasn’t Gorton’s, fried chicken and smothered pork chops. Much different than the days when Adami was still alive. Back then the menu consisted of three things: Lil’ Steak, Big Ol’ Steak and Spaghetti. That’s it.
The food is straightforward Californiana in that it has a random “Mexican-style” item and a few Italian-American items. But, seriously delicious. Complete with a complimentary side of peanut butter and preserves.
Before COVID there would always be a jar of Jif peanut butter that lived on the table. It’s the same idea as a bowl of free peanuts. Something to snack on to keep the hangry bikers at bay. You could help yourself to as much peanut butter as you like, some deciding to make little sandwiches out the complimentary peanut butter and bread, others choosing to spread the peanut butter on their steaks.
Mami ordered chicken wings (she’s always going to order chicken wings), clam chowder and the “Lil’ Steak.” Me? I ordered the “Big Ol’ Steak.”
By the time we shared a small salad that instantly reminded me of the salad my grandma would build at Sizzler (greens, garbanzo beans, red kidney beans, croutons and dressing), our wings and clam chowder arrived. The wings were the frozen kind from the bag with the gooey texture on the inside and Mami maybe took a few spoonfuls of the clam chowder. By the time we smashed the six count of wings, the china holding our entrees clanged onto the dark stained bar top in front of us.
Mami’s eight ounce sirloin was cooked well done, the way she likes her meats. It was lean, which is perfect for her because she doesn’t really like to eat meat. No scary fatty bits. She got a baked potato and they obliged by her constant request to have things “on the side.” Let me apologize in advance to any of you who own or work at a restaurant where you might encounter Mami, because she will order something to be served on the side.
My 16 ounce New York was surprisingly medium rare. Surprisingly tender. More surprisingly, seasoned by someone who is clearly chef-handed with the spices!
The baked potatoes were overdone. The interior was on the harder side rather than fluffy, breaking up into fragments instead of a mush when the butter and sour cream was added. I’d opt for the french fries next time. But, it didn’t stop Mami and I from quietly chowing away. You know the food is good when everyone gets quiet. We bounced around from adding a little peanut butter onto our bread, maybe some A1 on the steak, maybe some pieces of steak on the bread like a little sandwich. The variety that is needed to keep Mami interested in eating.
As soon as we started to slow down…more people walked into the bar. It was nearing the standard lunch hour in the United States, 12PM. Even if we’re not working in an office under the watchful eye of corporate wardens, most of our brains are already trained to consume our midday meal around 12PM.
Once another round of people walked in and sat at the bar, Mami was ready to go. We got our boxes, packed up our food, and hit the head before hitting the road.
We walked under the faded, milk painted, wooden soffits. The loggia kept us cool and shaded us from the sun on one of those early spring days where it’s so warm you utter, “It’s gonna be hot this summer.” We walked the entire length of the block passing by storefronts. A rarity for Mami who has to be in the mood to walk. A rarity for me because of the way my lower back will seize up; mostly due to my weight.
Mami stopped inside a second hand store. I stayed outside with one of the town’s resident cats who tried to kidnap me by luring me down a wooden boardwalk that led to the resident portions of the town. Turns out he just had his own Kilim padded stool in the midst of the plants, next to a inoperative clawfoot tub.
We got back on the river road to make the 40 minute drive back to Mami’s. Satiated in hunger and temporarily relaxed. Very few words were shared between the two of us as Mami looked out the window at the Delta slough. Her eyes growing heavier as the town of Locke became smaller in the distance of our one point perspective.
NEXT WEEK:
Marie’s Donuts...
A tiny Cambodian-owned doughnut shop that sits under lush tree canopy in California hides a tiny secret; it has multiple dates listed on what year they were established. For PAID Subscribers.
I visited Al's in the late 80's. It was an afternoon after the lunch rush and the tourists were gone. I had my peanut butter and bread and bellied up to the bar. I was in college at the time and I needed to write a paper. I sat next to a lovely Chinese man who was a life long resident. I asked him if I could ask him about his life and the town. He agreed to talk with me which thrilled me to bits. The bartender stood nearby and made sure of my intentions and manners with the gentleman, which also I appreciated how protective he was. We spoke for over an hour of his life as a pear farmer and his life in Locke.
I graduated and got on with life but of all my college papers my story of Al the Wop's and the town of Locke was amoung the very few I kept. I still treasure my conversation with this man and the look back at life as a Chinese immigrant.
Those steaks look good. And I think ramshackle seems like the perfect word. To me, ramshackle just means : could use a little attention but is still standing, without. i so appreciate this history and am very pleasantly surprised that the new owners seem to be treating it right, instead of upscaling it.