Carbon Canyon's Cabin Eats Restaurant

The latest restaurant to operate in a spot that has had several over the years in the largely-empty Olinda Village shopping center is Cabin Eats, which opened within the last few weeks.

It's a pretty sparse interior with plastic folding chairs, basic folding tables and not much in the way of decor.  A TV sits high in the corner and there are a couple where there is outside seating.

The restaurant is advertised as being open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day and offers Mexican and American food. The menu has breakfast and lunch sections, though, for some reason, there is no separate dinner portion. 

Going there last night, our group of three had nachos, a veggie burrito with red sauce, and cheese enchiladas with mole, along with a Caesar salad.  American selections include fish and chips, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a variety of burgers and the breakfast menu will be worth a visit, as well.  Drink are sodas and water with no alcohol served.

The food was pretty good.  The salsa served with the chips was pretty tasty and had a little kick to it.  The mole was good, as well, and the others liked their selections.  

Overall, it didn't measure up to the food at Sol de México, which operated there for a number of years before the short-lived Stone's Smokehouse, which was decent, or, going further back, the excellent Las Redes (anyone remember the name of the pretty good Italian place that was there for a minute or two maybe a dozen or so years back?) but it was still enjoyable.  

The server was good at checking in to see how things were going and the chef said hello and thanked our group for stopping in, so that was nice to see.

As our group discussed, the question is how long this or any other restaurant can survive in a shopping center, built in 1964 when local centers were more sustainable, which looks older and shakier with each passing year.  There were no other patrons last night during our visit and it will take a steady, regular stream of clientele to keep the business afloat.

So, let's hope enough people give it a try and like it that Cabin Eats can get established, but the restaurant business is tough as it is and the location makes the challenge that much greater.

Stone's Smokehouse Closed!

Stone's Smokehouse, the restaurant that operated in the former Sol de Mexico space in the Olinda Village shopping center in Carbon Canyon for only a year, has closed its doors.

According to a statement on Next Door Sleepy Hollow, the reason given by the owner of the restaurant was that the center's owner wanted $100,000 for fire sprinkler upgrades required by the City of Brea.

In addition, the restauranteur wanted to sell the business, but could not, evidently, get approval from the building's owner to apply the lease to any sale.

This blogger's experience at Stone's consisted of two visits for the all-you-can-eat fish and chips on Fridays and the food was decent enough.  Others suggested that the food was good, but the prices a bit on the high side, while there were some who raved about the place.

In any case, the fifty-two year old center is continuing to look the worse for wear and only has a few tenants (a dry cleaner/scrapbooking place, the electronic testing facility, and Carbon Creek Realty), so who knows what the fate of the complex will be, especially if the report of fire sprinkler upgrades are true.

Stone's Smokehouse in Carbon Canyon Opens Tonight!

Stone's Smokehouse in the Olinda Village Shopping Center is open for business as of tonight.  The restaurant occupies the space most recently known as Sol de Mexico, as well as an adjacent unit that was last a church.  The enterprise has a full bar as well as the dining area and there was a special advance event for Carbon Canyon residents last night to introduce the place.

Here is a comment left by an Olinda Village resident on the post from a couple of months back announcing the imminent opening of the restaurant.  It says it all, so here it is:

Stone's Smokehouse is opening tomorrow night, July 10.

The private opening for Carbon Canyon residents tonight was a huge success with just about everyone in Olinda Village showing up. It was jam packed from 6pm to 9pm and a good time was had by all. 

Even the guys from Brea Fire Station 4 stopped by and gave the kids a tour of their truck and passed out fire hats and left with lights on and siren blaring. 

The food was great and the owners, Tory and Marcela Stone are the nicest people in the world. The staff worked hard serving wall to wall people and had nothing but smiles and a friendly attitude.

We are so happy to have a local place to grab a burger and fries or some nice BBQ and wash it down with a cold beer or glass of wine in the company of friends.

Check it out and welcome the Stones to Carbon Canyon.

Best of luck to Tony and Marcela Stone as they launch their new venture and readers should feel free to leave comments on the restaurant, which can be passed on the Stones.

New Carbon Canyon Restaurant Opening Soon

A banner has appeared in recent days on eastbound Carbon Canyon Road just before Olinda Village announcing that a new restaurant, Stones Smoke House Barbecue & Grill, is opening soon and that hiring has begun.

The new eatery will occupy the space in the Olinda Village shopping center that was, for several years, the excellent and missed Sol de México and before that was, briefly, an Italian restaurant and then another long-standing Mexican place.

A comment was left on this blog months ago stating that there was something in the works and now this looks to be coming to fruition.

Of course, the restaurant business is notoriously competitive and the shopping center at Olinda Village, dating to the 1960s, is a relic of the time.  An unusual combination of dry cleaners and scrapbooking has opened recently, though it's not clear how well that business is doing.  Otherwise, there is the electrical testing facility and the Carbon Creek Realty business that also operate there.

So, stay tuned for more!

Sol de México Closes in Olinda Village

This is hardly new news, having taken place a few weeks back, but Sol de México, a great family-owned Mexican restaurant in the Olinda Villa shopping center, closed its doors.

The restaurant business is a tough one, obviously, but operating one in the decaying center was, undoubtedly, doubly (triply?) difficult and it is perhaps amazing that the eatery lasted as long as it did.

The food there was really good, especially the camarones a la diabla (shrimp with spicy mole, or sauce), which this blogger had to take diablita (or about half-strength.)  The cheese enchiladas and the caldo de pescado (fish stew) were also excellent.  And, the chips were homemade, as was the salsa, which offered a citrus tang not often found.  An ice cold Negra Modelo was a nice complement to a meal.

The place had been called Las Redes for years, before it closed and was briefly replaced by an Italian restaurant that was quite good for as little as it lasted.  Now, Sol de México gave it a good run, but has left yet another empty storefront in the 1960s-era center that is an anomaly in these days of strip malls and flashy shopping centers.

Supporting family-owned restaurants is always a good idea in the face of greater and greater pressure by the big chains, but as with the Mongolian BBQ place that just closed in Chino Hills recently, the market is a tough one to survive in.

Thanks to the folks who ran Sol de México and gave it their best shot!