Is The Derby worth going to? What are some other good restaurants in the area? I don’t mind if they’re a little pricey.
The Derby’s ambiance is very fun. Also try Nikki C’s on Rosemead. And we ate at a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant in the strip mall not far down from the Derby, it was really good.
The rest of the time I’ve been down there, I’ve either gone hungry or left my family because all they eat is Taco Bell. One day my dad and brother had Taco Bell for breakfast, lunch and dinner. :eek: :dead:
The Derby is Great!!! The food is great and the wine list is great!!!
And I agree that Nikki C’s is great as well!!
The Vault is also great.
Thanks again guys! S O wants to go to the Derby because of the connection w/George Wolf. I thought “well, if it’s really overrated we can at least go for a drink”. Glad to know the food is good. The menu looks wonderful.
Sports Illustrated did this bit on the place back in 1993:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138565/index.htm
The restaurant’s current owner, Chip Sturniolo, 42, is among those who are convinced his establishment is haunted. “I swear George Woolf’s ghost lives here,” he says. " Woolf lived above the restaurant, you know. Sometimes, looking through old scrapbooks or walking around, you can almost feel him there with you."
Wasn’t the place largely reworked in the last decade and much of the Seabiscuit memorabilia sold off? I’m pretty sure I have somewhere here a catalog from the auction house.
EDITED - 2003 - I.M Chait Gallery & Auctioneers, Beverly Hills
The Seabiscuit collection from The Derby went on the block on July 20, at I. M. Chait Gallery and Auctioneers in Beverly Hills, Calif. This sale included the kangaroo-leather saddle worn by both Phar Lap and Seabiscuit, George Woolf’s riding silks and crops, original Seabiscuit and George Woolf contracts, Seabiscuit horseshoes, signed photos of many jockey legends, vintage racing photos, and rare George Woolf artifacts and vintage Santa Anita memorabilia.
Why’d they sell the Woolf memorabilia?
Another article on the place. As to why some of the artifacts were sold off isn’t clear although I do suspect the owners thought it was the best time to cash in with so much national interest.
Seabiscuit’ May Put Restaurant in the Money
The Derby, founded by jockey George Woolf, who rode the horse, may see a run as film opens.
By Bob Pool, LA Times Staff Writer, July 10, 2003
It’s a steakhouse that celebrates horseflesh.
And 65 years after a horse named Seabiscuit sent people racing to the Derby, a movie called “Seabiscuit” seems poised to do the same thing again.
The venerable Arcadia restaurant was opened in 1938 by jockey George Woolf. It was the year he rode Seabiscuit to a Pimlico match-race victory over War Admiral in what many consider the greatest horserace in history.
On July 25, a film depicting the drama that led to that race and the emotion that it triggered nationwide will be released across the country.
Woolf owned and operated the Derby until his death in 1946 in a track accident at nearby Santa Anita. Over the past half-century, the restaurant has become something of a shrine to horseracing in general — and Seabiscuit in particular.
Reverential oil paintings of Seabiscuit hang from its walls. A main dining room lined with varnished, wood-mounted montages of photographs depicting the hard-charging horse on the track is called the Seabiscuit Room.
A portrait of Woolf is mounted above the fireplace in the bar. Patrons claim his eyes follow them, wherever they are.
“The restaurant is supposedly haunted by George Woolf. Certain things happen in here after 2 a.m. Pictures move, lights go out — strange stuff. But he’s not a bad ghost. A happy ghost he is,” said jockey Gary Stevens, who has considered the Derby one of his own favorite haunts for more than two decades.
He was there Monday night, reminiscing about how amazed he was when he visited the restaurant with his mother in 1980 when he was an apprentice jockey.
Stevens, 40, lives in Sierra Madre and has ridden to three Kentucky Derby victories and won the Belmont Stakes twice. He portrays Woolf on the screen in “Seabiscuit.”
And Stevens predicts that the movie — which stars Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges and Chris Cooper — will give horseracing a much-needed boost.
Over on the other side of the restaurant, Jockey Hall of Famer Chris McCarron was relaxing with his wife, Judy, and friends. McCarron retired as a jockey a year ago and now is general manager of Santa Anita. He agreed with Stevens.
“It will not only give us a kick in the pants, but a shot in the arm as well. It’s going to get two parts of the body at the same time,” he said. “It’s the story of a hero of a horse that brought the country out of the doldrums of the 1930s.”
Judy McCarron is president of the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, which is co-sponsoring an early premiere of “Seabiscuit” as a $150-per-ticket fund-raiser. It will be screened July 20 at the Krikorian Monrovia Cinema — following cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the Derby.
The suppertime crowd Monday was more of a backstretch group. Two tables away from the McCarrons was trainer Leonard Dorfman, 81, of La Verne. He remembers watching Seabiscuit in the flesh.
“When I started on the race track in 1937, we were stabled near Seabiscuit. I was in awe of that horse. I just thought he walked on water. I’ve never changed my opinion that the day that Stagehand beat him by a nose in the Santa Anita Handicap in 1938 was the best race I’ve ever seen a horse run. And I’m not alone,” Dorfman said.
Across the room, beneath the portrait of the stern-eyed Woolf, track veteran Jack Van Berg was dining after stopping off on his way back to Los Angeles from a visit to his high desert ranch. His pickup truck, loaded with bales of hay, was parked outside.
“For many years, this was the place to come if you wanted to see somebody or meet them. It still happens. It’s packed on race days,” said Van Berg, 67.
Restaurant owner Charles “Chip” Sturinolo, 52, grew up in the Derby. His parents bought the place in 1951 from Woolf’s widow. They also acquired Woolf’s racing memorabilia.
The restaurant, at 233 E. Huntington Drive — or “about seven furlongs from Santa Anita,” as Sturinolo puts it — was Proctor’s Chicken House before Woolf bought it as his retirement nest egg.
But he died in early January 1946 when the horse he had agreed to ride at the last moment, Please Me, stumbled at Santa Anita’s clubhouse turn. Woolf was pitched over the horse and landed heavily on his head. He suffered a skull fracture and never regained consciousness.
Author Laura Hillenbrand, whose 2001 bestseller “Seabiscuit” is the basis for the upcoming movie, recounts in her book that 1,500 people attended Woolf’s funeral. Cowboy actor Gene Autry sang “Empty Saddles in the Old Corral.”
Later, it was learned that Woolf had failed to use his “lucky” saddle, made of Australian kangaroo, on his fatal ride. It was believed to be the only time in his career that he had not used it.
[b]Sturinolo is sensible, if not sentimental. He plans to auction some of Woolf’s possessions — including the saddle — the day of the charity movie premiere.
“The real turf people know the history of George Woolf and Seabiscuit. Now we’re getting new people interested in racing,” he said as he walked through the restaurant Monday and pointed out the memorabilia he’ll keep.[/b]
“This is Seabiscuit with his little biscuits. This is at Ridgewood Ranch, where Seabiscuit is buried, up near Willits [Calif.].” None of the offspring succeeded on the track, he said, gazing at a huge dining room photograph of the horse family.
The Derby has been remodeled and doubled in size since Woolf’s day. When his parents took it over five years after the jockey’s death, Sturinolo said, it was in rough shape. And patronized by a rough crowd.
“The front door used to be glass. Someone threw my dad through the glass door, and my dad walked back in through the glass and picked up the guy and physically threw him out. It took about a year to clean the restaurant out.”
A display case near the main door is full of racing and restaurant history. Original menus list shrimp cocktails for 15 cents and a filet dinner for $1.95.
“Here’s the first dollar George Woolf brought in back in '38. There’s the invitation when they opened the Derby. This is a scrapbook: If you were to open it up, you have Victor Mature in there, Bob Hope, Dean Martin — all those old-timers who went to the racetrack all the time.”
A pair of Woolf’s jockey boots also is on display.
“They’re probably a 5 or a 5 1/2. He was pretty large for a jockey,” Sturinolo said.
Moviemakers spent several months at the Derby researching horseracing. Sturinolo lent Woolf’s original jockey silks and boots to costume makers.
“It was completely invaluable. He even let us come over and dig through boxes and scrapbooks,” said Judianna Makovsky, costume designer for “Seabiscuit.”
“In racing museums, they save the shirts and hats but not what’s underneath. Nobody had the britches or shoes. People just didn’t save it. We were thrilled to find the Derby. It brought to mind that George Woolf was a real man, not just a character in a story.”
And Seabiscuit was a real racehorse.
Oddly enough the owners name appears to be misspelled - it appears as Chip Sturniolo elsewhere - with far more articles on him with the “iolo”.
as for the auction outcome the AP had this:
The ASSOCIATED PRESS reports Sturniolo attempted to auction more than 372 lots of Seabiscuit memorabilia Sunday at the I.M. Chait Gallery in Beverly Hills.
The lots included a “battered kangaroo leather saddle trimmed in lizard skin worn by Seabiscuit, which failed to meet its reserve price.”
However, an anonymous buyer from Virgina purchased the saddle following the auction. Bidding on the saddle ended at $125K - below the initial auction-asking price of $150K.
