YES MEN

Bob and Gregg Smith helm Smith Brothers Restaurants. Yes Men

THE SMITH BROTHERS WON’T LET GUESTS DOWN AT THEIR EATERIES

BY FRIER MCCOLLISTER

Parkway Grill. Arroyo Chophouse. Smitty’s Grill.

These three restaurants are iconic, but not everyone knows or understands that they are products of the ingenuity, imagination, hard work and persistence of Gregg and Bob Smith, otherwise known as the Smith brothers. They are sons of the Arroyo and have quietly built their impressive empire in Pasadena over four decades.

In an extended chat with Gregg Smith, the whole — largely untold story — began to unfold, and with it in comes the history of fine dining in the area.

Born in Los Angeles, the Smith brothers — Bob, 78, and Gregg, 73 — were raised in La Cañada, where their architect father moved the family in 1950. Bob pursued a career in dentistry, while it was Gregg who was drawn to hospitality and the restaurant business.

Gregg recalls the circumstances surrounding the 1974 opening of their first venture, Reflections in La Cañada.

“My brother, at the time, was a dentist,” Gregg says. “I was the restaurant guy. My brother was mostly on the finance end and also the operations, but he had his office in the high desert. I was boots on the ground.”

They were determined to open a restaurant, but finding an appropriate location was challenging.

“I was traveling with my father all over Southern California trying to find a location, and one night I was going to see my parents in La Cañada and I drove by the old Chef’s Inn, which had been there forever. It was a block from my house, and here we had been looking all over Southern California. It was a Friday night. I looked at the parking lot; it didn’t look very full. I parked my car and walked in and boy, it was ghastly.”

The owner was looking to sell the place, and a deal was quickly struck. After a few months of renovation, Reflections opened.

“It was an instant success,” Gregg says. “Thank God. It was a steakhouse. We also had in those days the famous salad bar. A full (liquor) bar. Live music in the lounge seven nights a week. It was the place to be in La Cañada, by far.”

This successful activity was a prelude to the brothers’ triumphant campaign in Pasadena.

“I moved to Pasadena in 1976. We were very involved in the community. Why go anywhere else?” Gregg muses. “We said, ‘Let’s stick right here in Pasadena.’ We can visit all three restaurants every night if we want to, every day if we want to. We can smell it. We can taste it. We can keep our fingers on it.”

Ten years later, in 1984, they opened Parkway Grill in Pasadena.

“That was huge,” Gregg says. “I hired the sous chef and the assistant pastry chef from (Wolfgang Puck’s) Spago in Hollywood.”

Aptly, over the years, the Parkway has been referred to as “the Spago of Pasadena” because of its high quality of the food and its role as a society hub where local tastemakers and celebrities mingle. The venerable institution has never lost its edge.

“It’s been around for 37 years,” Gregg says. “In restaurant years, like dog years, by now it should have been five different restaurants. Our business is very strong there. We take great pride in that.”

The chefs, Servando Campos and Martin Salinas, have been dedicated to the restaurant for decades.

With the opening success of Parkway Grill, the brothers scouted the South Lake Avenue business district to open a more accessible venue, Crocodile Café, in 1987.

“Parkway Grill was so popular. We said, ‘Let’s open a more casual café with the wood-burning pizzas and a great hamburger,’” he says.

It proved to be another immediately popular attraction.

“There were some weekends in that small, tiny little restaurant, we would do 1,000 meals a day,” Smith recalls.

The café’s success attracted an investor with bigger ambitions, and the Smith brothers expanded the operation into 16 restaurants in five states. Smith says the venture was a logistical nightmare.

“That’s when we thought, ‘No one knows us in Colorado, no one knows us in Arizona or Nevada or Washington State. Let’s just stick to Pasadena. Why

make this so complicated?’” he says.

The chain was sold “for a nice little sum of money” and the brothers brought their focus back home.

They opened the Arroyo Chop House in 1997 next door to Parkway Grill. Arroyo Chop House has stood the test of time, proving to be one of Southern California’s finest independent steakhouses.

“We never compromise. We serve 100% exclusively USDA prime on every single cut,” Gregg says. “It comes from a single-source supplier in Nebraska, and that even includes the tenderloins, which is fairly rare in steakhouses. About 2% of all beef in the country is graded USDA prime. We’ve stuck with that. It’s the best that money can buy.”

Chefs Jorge Avila and Macario Valladares ensure that consistent quality as the meat comes off the grill.

While the present pandemic circumstances for all restaurants have required “pivots,” the Smith brothers already have some practice. In 2000, they opened Ducz on South Lake. An ambitious Asian-fusion fine dining concept, Ducz was helmed by another Wolfgang Puck alum, chef Fred Iwasaki.

“I think it was one of our best efforts ever,” Gregg says. “The food was extraordinary. It was very sophisticated. It was quite expensive, and it was executed extremely well.”

Unfortunately, it was slow to take off.

“If it had opened six or seven years later it probably would have done better,” Gregg says. “It broke our hearts. We just loved that place. Our guests did, too. There just wasn’t enough of them.”

The brothers were making other plans for Ducz on September 11, 2001.

“It dawned on us, maybe with all the turmoil and all of the tragic events, maybe people are going to want more comfort,” Gregg says.

“This is probably the time for comfort food.”

They had also been saving the name Smitty’s for just such a moment. They closed Ducz and, in “probably about a week,” reopened as Smitty’s, an elegant club room with a menu focused on sophisticated renditions of comforting classics.

“The change in the environment and the change in the menu was like night and day. You go from Asian fusion to chicken pot pie?”

The result? “Huge success,” Smith replies. That’s thanks to chefs Miguel Mendez and Edgardo Menjivar.

Because of their ongoing success and the depth of their experience, the Smith brothers are occasionally tapped for consultation. Notably, when musician Herb Alpert was looking to open his live music bistro, Vibrato in Beverly Glen, he called on the Smiths.

“Herb called us, and we met with him. Great guy,” Gregg says. “We were more of an operating consultant to Herb. We were involved with that for four years or so.”

The secret to their success, besides consistently great food, is its homey environment.

“What we’ve always aimed to do is position our restaurants so when our guests come through the front door or even drive up to the valet, it’s like, quote, ‘coming home,’” Gregg says.

“Some of our guests will actually say that (to me) and I try not to tear up, because that’s exactly what we wanted. So, I think we have succeeded in that. Our team members are very committed to it. We talk to them about it all the time.”

Among the staff, the Smith brothers’ venues are collectively known as “The House of Yes.”

“What we mean by that is, we will try to accommodate any of our guests’ requests, if humanly possible,” Gregg says. “It’s easy to say ‘no,’ but if you go beyond and exceed the guest’s expectations by saying ‘yes,’ then I think we’ve got a leg up. It’s the House of Yes. If we can do it, we’ll do it.”

The pandemic lockdown killed table service for now. Gregg says he and his staff were stunned to be out of business for the first time since 1974.

Like other fine dining establishments, the Smiths’ venues were not immediately positioned nor equipped for the pivot to takeout and delivery. They did renovate their dining rooms in anticipation of the brief window when indoor service was allowed. They also successfully embraced the provision for outdoor dining.

“When we were open for outside dining, I was at the restaurants every single night,” Gregg says. “Sometimes I would make the rounds of all three. During the first month of this, table after table after table, probably 90% of the people I talked to said, ‘You should do this all year long. This is fantastic. This is beautiful. We much prefer to eat outdoors.’”

Long active in the community, the Smith brothers participate in an informal collective of independent restaurant operators. They have been working closely with the city throughout the uncertain twists of the pandemic and the state and county’s subsequent dining restrictions.

“I’ve got to say, the city could not have performed better,” Gregg says. “It would have been impossible.”

Smith says the Pasadena health department “stuck their necks out” for them.

“We would ask for an outdoor dining permit, there would be someone there that day,” Gregg says. “You couldn’t have asked for a better response. Once we were open, the health department was also there to enforce the protocols. They were tough, but they were tough in a good way. They had our backs, and we wanted to have their backs.”

That sense of care, attention, mutual respect and social responsibility seems to inform everything the Smith brothers have worked to do. Their evident success speaks to it, and the community continues to benefit from it. For now, for 47 years, the Smith brothers have been quietly answering the call with one simple word, “Yes.”

One of Parkway Grill’s signature dishes is whole ginger fried catfish with yuzu ponzu, caraway rice and cucumber-mint relish.

The surf and turf at Arroyo Chop House is plated with USDA prime ribeye and Australian lobster tail.

Parkway Grill 510 S. Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena 626-795-1001, theparkwaygrill.com

Arroyo Chop House 536 S. Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena 626-577-7463, arroyochophouse.com

Smitty’s Grill 110 S. Lake Avenue, Pasadena 626-792-9999, smittysgrill.com