Mistress of Music

Home Of The Golden Spud

Happy Steak was a homegrown California restaurant chain that grew out of the Central San Joaquin Valley. Its roots go back to the 1960s, when restaurateur H.T. “Chic” Brooks and his partners were operating Topper’s steakhouse franchises. When Topper’s went bankrupt, Brooks and 17 other franchisees essentially built something new from the ashes: Happy Steak.

The chain became particularly associated with Fresno and the surrounding Valley, eventually spreading to places including Visalia, Madera, Hanford and Bakersfield. At its height, there were more than 50 Happy Steak locations, making it a surprisingly substantial regional chain even though it never became a national name.

And then there was the thing that everybody remembered:

The Golden Spud.

Happy Steak's signature baked potato was wrapped in gold foil, earning the restaurant its wonderfully goofy “Home of the Golden Spud” identity. The restaurant also became known for inexpensive steak dinners; in the 1970s, some locations ran 99-cent steak dinners featuring a New York steak or sirloin, the Golden Spud and toast.

The Best Beef Dip Sandwich In The World

My Favorite Coffee

This isn't just a picture of an old Denny's.

This is the Denny's I remember growing up with on White Lane in Bakersfield.

Before smartphones. Before being open 24 hours became something we took for granted. Before everyone carried the entire world around in their pocket, places like this were where people met.

Families gathered around sticky tables. Teenagers killed time in oversized booths. Friends lingered over bottomless coffee. And somehow, a simple meal could turn into a three-hour conversation.

I wanted to recreate more than the restaurant. I wanted to recreate the California I remember, the palms, the mountains, the cars in the parking lot, that weird golden-blue California light, and the feeling that the night could keep going as long as you wanted it to.

And if you've ever been in a working band or you're the kind of karaoke goblin who doesn't know when the night is supposed to end like myself, you know Denny's has a special place in your heart.

The Basque History of Bakersfield & Wool Growers

This one is personal.

I grew up in Bakersfield, California, and I’m a proud Basque American. So when I painted Wool Growers Restaurant for my restaurant series, I wanted to understand and share the history behind the place.

Basque immigration to the American West goes back to the late 1800s. Young men from the Basque regions of northern Spain and southwestern France came to America looking for opportunity. Many found work as sheepherders, and the sheep industry of California's San Joaquin Valley made Kern County a natural destination.

By the 1890s, Bakersfield had become an important center of Basque life in the American West.

The heart of that community developed around what is now Old Town Kern, near the old Southern Pacific railroad depot. The railroad was especially important because newly arriving immigrants could get off the train and find themselves within walking distance of Basque boarding houses.

These boarding houses were called ostatuak.

They were much more than places to sleep.

They gave newly arrived Basque immigrants somewhere to eat, speak their language, receive mail, find work, meet people from home, and build a new life. In 1893, Faustino Mier Noriega and Fernando Etcheverry opened the Iberia Hotel, Bakersfield's first Basque boardinghouse, on Sumner Street. It was renamed the Noriega Hotel in 1906 and remained an important gathering place for the Basque community for generations. And the community grew around it.

Other Basque businesses followed, including the Pyrenees Café in 1935 and Wool Growers Restaurant in 1954. Together, these establishments helped make this part of East Bakersfield the historical heart of the city's Basque community. Wool Growers became part of the tradition of Basque-American family restaurants, places where food wasn't simply something you ordered off a menu.

You sat down at the table. You shared. Traditional Basque meals are often served family-style, with cabbage stew, salad, bread, beans, vegetables and potatoes accompanying a substantial meat entrée. It's a style of dining that reflects the communal traditions carried by generations of Basque immigrants.

And that's what makes places like Wool Growers so important.

They're not simply restaurants. They're pieces of a diaspora's history.

Sheep brought many Basque immigrants to Kern County.

Boarding houses gave them a place to belong.

Restaurants became gathering places where food, language, family and tradition could survive across generations.

And that brings me back to the sheep on the Wool Growers sign. That sheep isn't just decoration.

It represents the people and the industry that helped connect the Basque community to Bakersfield in the first place.

Today, Bakersfield is still home to one of the largest concentrations of Basque restaurants in the United States.

So when I look at this building, I don't just see an old restaurant beneath a Bakersfield sunset.

I see a piece of my own heritage.

A piece of the community that helped make Bakersfield what it is.

I'm a proud Basque American.

And this isn't just another painting in my California series.

In-N-Out " What a Burger Is All About"

In-N-Out began in 1948 in Baldwin Park, California, when Harry and Esther Snyder opened a tiny drive-thru hamburger stand. It was one of California's first drive-thru hamburger restaurants, and Harry introduced a two-way speaker system so customers could order without leaving their cars.

The famous Double-Double came later, in 1963, giving customers two beef patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, tomato, and the signature spread. By the 1960s, In-N-Out had become a quintessential part of Southern California car culture. Sunshine, burgers, hot rods, palm trees, and cruising.

Smith’s Bakery

Union Avenue

Bakersfield, California ·

For generations of Bakersfield families, Smith’s Bakeries has been more than a place to buy bread, pastries, and something sweet. It has been part of the rhythm of everyday life.

Founded in 1945, Smith’s began as a small local bakery and grew into one of Bakersfield’s enduring institutions. The Union Avenue location became a familiar landmark as well as a place where generations stopped for donuts, cakes, pastries, and the bakery’s beloved smiley-face cookies.

This painting depicts that original Union Avenue location as a celebration of old Bakersfield: the brick façade, the striped awnings, the American flag, the broad Central Valley sky, and a well-loved Ford parked out front. These are the ordinary details that become extraordinary with time.

Smith’s is still here. The building still stands. The ovens still run.

And for those of us who grew up in Bakersfield, places like this carry something a little harder to put into words: the taste, warmth, and feeling of home. I could definitely go for some smiley faces, the pink champagne cake or my favorite a big box of Alliogs.

Milt’s Iron Horse

Bakersfield, California · Oak Street

There was a time when Bakersfield had its own kind of roadside magic—and Milt’s Iron Horse was part of it.

Restaurateur Milton “Milt” Huggs opened Milt’s Coffee Shop in 1964, building a reputation for good food, long hours, and a genuine connection with his customers. In time, he expanded his little restaurant empire, opening the Iron Horse and the Ranch Inn.

The Iron Horse became one of Bakersfield’s memorable landmarks, housed in a wonderfully unusual railroad dining car on Oak Street. Its distinctive character was enough to catch the eye of photographer John Margolies, who photographed the restaurant in 1978 as part of his celebrated documentation of disappearing American roadside architecture. Today, that photograph survives in the collection of the Library of Congress.

The restaurant is gone now, but for those who remember it, Milt’s Iron Horse represents something that Bakersfield once did exceptionally well: turning an ordinary roadside stop into a place with a personality all its own.

Mearle’s Drive-In

Visalia, California

Long before Mooney Boulevard became the busy commercial corridor it is today, there was a little piece of classic California car culture sitting at 604 South Mooney Boulevard.

The building dates to 1940 and originally operated as Tad’s Drive-In, complete with carhops and the familiar ordering boxes that defined the American drive-in. After passing through several incarnations, the restaurant was purchased by Mearle Heitzman in 1960. He renamed it Mearle’s College Drive-In, and it would become a Visalia institution.

Mearle had already spent years managing drive-ins throughout the San Joaquin Valley, but this one became his own. He operated it for 47 years, building the kind of loyal following that turns a restaurant into something much bigger than a restaurant. Generations of Visalians remember the food, the enormous portions of fries, the carhops, the neon, and simply cruising Mooney Boulevard.

Mearle’s finally closed in 2006, ending an extraordinary chapter in Visalia history. The building itself was saved from demolition and later became a Habit Burger Grill, preserving much of the historic footprint and honoring the site's legacy.

Today, Mearle’s is remembered not simply as an old restaurant, but as a symbol of a particular California that has largely disappeared: a time when the automobile, the roadside diner, neon signs, and a big plate of fries were all part of the adventure.

Country Boy Drive-In

Bakersfield, California · Rosedale Highway SR 58

For more than half a century, Country Boy Drive-In has been part of the Rosedale landscape. Just a little roadside burger stand that never needed to become fancy to become beloved.

Located on Rosedale Highway for over 50 years, Country Boy represents the kind of old-school Bakersfield dining that has become increasingly rare: burgers made for hungry people, enormous portions of fries, shakes, teriyaki, pastrami, and a menu that somehow manages to feel both unmistakably American and distinctly Bakersfield. Locals have been coming back for generations, and even today the restaurant retains its humble, neighborhood-drive-in character.

And then there is the Paul Bunyan Burger—a Country Boy favorite and, admittedly, my own personal choice. There is something wonderfully Bakersfield about a burger with a name like that: unapologetically big, uncomplicated, and built for someone who came hungry. Bacon lettuce avocado slices and burger sauce on toasted buns with two thick patties slathered in cheese. The best crinkle cut fries with just the right amount of seasoning salt and a big Dr. Pepper