La Arcada:

A perfect mix of historic and modern

By leslie a . westBrook • photos Courtesy John C . wooDwarD ColleCtion

Imagine turning back the clock some 90 years to 1926, when the Spanish Revival style shopping and dining destination La Arcada was designed and built by famed architect Myron Hunt (1868-1952). Hunt left his mark in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara as the consulting architect to John Cooper in the design and construction of our town’s lovely dining and shopping destination.

La Arcada was built to be a part of Santa Barbara’s “paseo system” in downtown Santa Barbara. Just three blocks down State Street, El Paseo was the first to be built, with El Paseo restaurant opening in 1923.

La Arcada was built on the site of the main downtown Catholic church, Our Lady of Sorrows Church, when the 1925 earthquake hit and the adobe and brick towers fell, destroying the church (built in 1868) that sat at the northeast corner of State and Figueroa streets.

Architect Hunt was part of the famous Prairie School of design in the Midwest before he moved to Southern California in 1903 and designed many Golden State landmarks. Hunt made a name for himself designing (with partners) such iconic structures as the Rose Bowl, Huntington Library, a wing of the Mission Inn in Riverside, Los Angeles’s famed Ambassador Hotel (which opened in 1921) and many buildings at Occidental College. Hunt also designed the Faulkner Gallery (1930) of the original

Santa Barbara Public Library, which is adjacent to the atmospheric walking arcade.

An original La Arcada tenant was Pearl Chase’s Community Arts Association Plans & Planting Committee, which was influential in the rebuilding of our town in the Spanish style after 1925’s magnitude 6.8 temblor.

LA ArCAdA restAurAnt hIstory

The popular anchor of La Arcada is the tile fountain, where children and the young at heart delight in the turtle sanctuary. The fountain is also the centerpiece for the recently opened Viva Modern Mexican. The space has its own storied history.

Early restaurant history is sketchy, but with the help of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum Library and historians Neal Graffy and John Woodward, I was able to cobble some information together. A variety of owners, managers and names have been associated with the space since its inception.

In 1927, Benjamin J. Sears had a restaurant complex called Sears Café, but he left the next year. Wooden booths were part of the décor in the 1920s.

In 1929, Mrs. Rose T. Parrish’s dining establishment may have been called the Café de La Arcada. (Mrs. Parrish also had a tea room at the rear of 15 East Carrillo).

In September 1930, Russell D. Smith opened and ran Russell’s Fine Foods through 1934. Smith was also the manager of Restaurante del Paseo beginning in 1929 and carrying on for many years.

Robert L. Kuss, who had previously worked for Smith at El Paseo, ran La Arcada Fine Foods (1935). There’s no record of a restaurant at 1114 State in 1936, but from 1937 to 1942 Richard Schwartz ran La Arcada Café

After a spate of quiet (1943-1945), El Cielito opened in 1946. The name of the first proprietor is lost to history, but not the second. It was Santa Barbara’s well-known Harry Davis, who began running the show in 1948. By the mid-1960s, it was slightly renamed to Harry’s El Cielito.

About 1964, Josephine Wandell, who had been manager at the Sportsman on Figueroa, came to work for Harry as manager. Rumor has it that about a decade later, in 1973 (some say 1977), Davis “gifted” or sold El Cielito to Josephine, who added her name to the marquee.

Josie’s El Cielito was a longtime popular gathering spot for locals, and a favorite lunch location for judges and attorneys from the courthouse. The walls were painted to mimic the interior walls of a Mexican village, much like the Arlington Theater, so patrons were sitting in an “interior” courtyard.

In 1980, Josie’s El Cielito closed and the restaurant chain Acapulco Y Los Arcos took over the space with a 25-year lease.

Stateside Restaurant moved in from 2007-2009.

The “new” Cielito opened in spring 2011. At that time, restaurateur Gordon Hardy and real estate developer Karen Phillips spent two years and a small fortune remodeling the historic space, giving it an exciting new patina and vibe, yet retaining the historic 1880s bar from Chicago.

After a four-year run and rave restaurant reviews, once again, the restaurant went through changes in 2016. Longtime Santa Barbara restaurateur Brendan Searls took over the management and christened the space Viva Modern Mexican—as in “Viva la Fiesta!” the popular phrase shouted during Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days parade. Searls wanted to pay homage to the city’s heritage while evoking a year-round fiesta atmosphere in his dining and drinking establishment. He also took over the space next door, turning it into a special events space for weddings, parties, and other catered affairs.

The majestic antique bar, brought to Santa Barbara from Chicago by longtime La Arcada owner Hugh Petersen, provides a grand backdrop for sipping tequila or noshing on fish tacos. Isinglass lights hanging above the bar were discovered in 1976 in the attic of California Electric Company. Their provenance? These were the first electric lights in the Mission Santa Barbara (later replaced with more modern fixtures in the 1920s).

“It’s an honor to follow in the footsteps of all the previous restaurants who have been in this beautiful space with such a storied history, “ said Brendan Searls, “This spot has been synonymous with local hospitality since 1927, and I am putting the soul back in and giving the restaurant back to the people.”

Look uP!

Amid charming shops and restaurants, there are other delights to be discovered in La Arcada. In fact, one could easily create a family scavenger hunt.

Look up at both the State and Figueroa street entrances and take note of the handsome lion and castle motif entranceway signs, inspired by original frescoes. Wander the terra cotta tile walkways and look up again. Halfway down the State Street entrance you’ll discover a 1761 mission bell hanging on the wall. It was purchased in a Christie’s London auction in 1993 for approximately $3,400 by Hugh Petersen. The rare bell was discovered in Baja, Mexico, by an Englishman who, while exploring the area, “collected it” from an abandoned mission not far from Ensenada and shipped it home.

Also prominently displayed on the wall, just across from the Zacatecas bell, is a historic cannon from a Spanish galleon dated 1741, another of Petersen’s additions.

“La Arcada was a love affair for him,” Peterson’s delightful niece, Lynne Tahmisian, told me in her spacious La Arcada upstairs office. Tahmisian has been president of La Arcada Investment Corporation for almost two decades

Petersen, whose ownership and management began in 1972, added many sculpture pieces: bronzes by Santa Barbara artist Ben Bottoms (some of which kids can climb on), lifelike statues by J. Seward Johnson and George Lundeen, and the interactive “Mozart Trio” fountain by Bonifatius Stirnberg. A lacquered steel sculpture facing the courtyard shared by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the SB Public Library, “Intermezzo” (1967) by British artist, Sir Anthony Caro, one of Britain’s greatest sculptors, was installed in 1988.

An original fresco above Viva Modern Mexican depicts the lion and castle motifs used at the entrances. Other original frescoes that have been covered over and are now hidden may be unearthed and restored in the future, Tahmisian suggested.

Today, five additional indoor/outdoor dining venues join Viva Modern Mexican in hosting tourists, locals, and yes, judges and attorneys

Breakfast and Lunch Tuesday–Sunday 9–2

Dinner served Tuesday–Saturday from 5:30

Full Bar | Reservations recommended

11 West Victoria in Victoria Court 805-770-2143 scarlettbegonia.net