After the longest-operating cafe in L.A. County announced in late December that it would shut down after 139 years, customers of the Original Saugus Cafe began buying up its branded hats, T-shirts, mugs and other merchandise.
When the merch sold out, some took to filching from the tables: glassware, salt and pepper shakers, and even utensils.
To Jessie Mercado, 31, and her father, Alfredo — who has owned the beloved cafe in Santa Clarita for 30 years — it was amusing and sweet that many held the establishment so close to their hearts that they wanted to take pieces of it home with them.
But a property manager who took over handling their lease in recent months saw it differently. He left an angry voicemail for her 59-year-old father, reviewed by The Times, telling him to “get the Godd— s— back,” or he would sue.
Customers of the Original Saugus Cafe didn’t have long to mourn the loss of the landmark. The restaurant, which closed on Jan. 4, has already reopened under new management. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a dispute over the cafe’s ownership has boiled over into a lawsuit as the Mercados insist that they were pushed out.
For decades, Mercado’s father said he had a friendly relationship and verbal lease agreement with the property owner, Hank Arklin Sr., a former state Assembly member who owned several commercial spaces in the area.
But difficulties arose after Arklin died at the age of 97 in August, the Mercados said, and they began dealing with Larry Goodman, who handles properties on behalf of the Arklin family’s company, North Valley Construction.
The Mercados alleged in a lawsuit filed last week that Goodman, North Valley Construction and Arklin’s wife, Louise, had treated the family poorly, tainted the brand, ignored their legal claim to the business and equipment so they would abandon the restaurant.
Despite the ongoing legal challenge, the cafe reopened on Monday at 5 a.m. under new owner Eduardo Reyna and with a slightly different name: Saugus Restaurant. Much of the furniture appears to have remained the same,along with menu items and even some of the employees.
“People think we lied to them [about shutting down]. That it was a publicity front. I want them to know we were scammed into this,” Mercado said. “It’s sad it had to go down this way.”
Steffanie Stelnick, an attorney representing the Mercados, said that for the new owner and landlord “to open up and run [the cafe] in the same location, representing it as the same business without purchasing it or without permission” is effectively stealing.
Stelnick said she planned to amend the lawsuit to include Reyna.
Reyna did not respond to a phone call request for comment.
Goodman did not respond to multiple phone calls and messages from The Times requesting comment. Louise Arklin also did not respond to requests for comment.
But earlier this month in an interview with the Santa Clarita Valley news outlet the Signal, Goodman disputed that the Mercado family owned the business and said the father had wavered about keeping the restaurant going.
“They don’t have nothing to sell. I own everything,” Goodman said. “We own the cafe. We own the building. The stove. The dishes. The forks. We own everything in there.”
The cafe, in a long, narrow building, was beloved by Santa Clarita residents and was locally renowned for its long-running operation, its cameos in various films and television shows, and visits by Hollywood stars such as Frank Sinatra and John Wayne.
Mercado said her family hadn’t wanted to close. They wanted to continue supporting the 17 employees who worked there. But, she said, they entertained the possibility of selling the business if the right offer came along. Dealings with Goodman, however, had felt hostile and left her father feeling “humiliated” and like they had no option but to leave.
A sign on the door posted in late December announced the cafe’s closure, noting that the “decision was not made lightly.”
On its last day of operation, the line stretched down the block. Among customers saying their goodbyes was Charlane Glover, who shared countless Sunday morning breakfasts with her husband there before his death.
“I can’t imagine it being gone,” said Glover, who waited for over an hour for a table for her and her granddaughter. “We are losing all of our history.”
Mercado’s father got a shock the next morning, his daughter said, when he arrived to pack up only to find the locks had been changed and a sign posted saying the cafe would be “reopening under new ownership soon!”
Alfredo Mercado had started at the restaurant busing tables and washing dishes, she said, working his way up the ladder to bartender and cook positions to eventually acquire ownership of the cafe and its name in 1998. Her father is the sole name listed on the LLC.
Stelnick, the family’s attorney, wrote in a Jan. 6 cease-and-desist letter to Goodman that he made a “wrongful attempt” to take her client’s business and that his alleged “ongoing threats and force have already caused significant damage.”
The Mercados filed suit Jan. 14 in Los Angeles County Superior Court and are pursuing damages — including the taking of their personal property — of at least $500,000.
The complaint alleges that, in August after Arklin’s death, Goodman pressured Mercado’s father to sign a lease that stated that, in addition to the premises, all manner of appliances and utensils were under the purview of the rental agreement — including “kitchen equipment, booths, counters, stools, chairs, registers, utensils, pots, plates, cutlery, and other cooking & mechanical systems” — even though the Mercados had purchased and maintained those items, the lawsuit argued. Goodman, the lawsuit alleged, had indicated the Mercados would not be able to remain on the property as tenants if they did not sign.
At the end of August, the Arklin family’s company, North Valley Construction, submitted trademark applications for the names “Saugus Café,” “The Original Saugus Café” and “Saugus Café1.”
The lawsuit said the filing of applications showed the property owner was pursuing a “confusingly similar” name and that infringement on the Mercados’ business was thus “willful, deliberate, and malicious.”
Mercado said her father hadn’t acted sooner because he didn’t understand the extent of his claim over the business.
“We just didn’t know our rights,” Mercado said.
Staff photographer Juliana Yamada contributed to this report.
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