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.

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!