When Justin Albergate was 15, he went to work busing tables at the Mermaid restaurant for his grandfather, the late Quentin L. “Boots” Thelen. That was 20 years ago, but Albergate remembers it well.
“It was full of smoke. It was scary and dark,” Albergate said. “The old guys at the bar, I was scared of them all.”
It wasn’t unusual for Boots to holler at Albergate – or anyone else. In that way and others, the Mermaid has been a one-of-a-kind place. Sunday was the last day of the Thelen-owned Mermaid. This weekend served as a kind of last call for anyone and everyone who ever enjoyed the Mermaid to stop in and say hello to old friends and goodbye to the bar and restaurant that has served as an Old Hermosa landmark for last 62 years.
When Boots died in 2007, Albergate began bartending regularly.
“All these years, the family … It’s not just a job,” Albergate said while smoking a cigarette outside the side door. “It’s a home.”
[scrollGallery id = 428]Longtime patron and criminal defense attorney Bob Courtney shares the same view.
Courtney spent his 21st birthday at the Mermaid with Thelen. And on Saturday, he was celebrating his 77th birthday with his wife, Dorothy.
“Fifty-six years ago I was in here with Boots having a drink,” Courtney said.
For his birthday, Courtney ate a Garbade sandwich, named after a former bartender, Bill Garbade, who had a habit of asking the chef make him a bacon, egg, cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich before his shift.
“And everybody liked it so much, they put it on the menu,” Courtney said.
Courtney moved to Hermosa Beach in 1955 and has a place in Mermaid legend as someone Thelen marched across the street to the Bank of America where he guaranteed a line of credit as large as Courtney needed. In return, Courtney served on the Hermosa Beach Parks and Recreation commission.
“I was a great, great pal of Boots,” Courtney said. “He helped me get through law school, and if ever I needed to eat when I was in law school and didn’t have any money.” He said, “You can come in and charge it and you could pay it back later.”
Asked what the Mermaid means to him, Courtney said, “This has been one of my homes.”
After Thelen died in 2007, his step-daughter Diana Albergate took over management of the Mermaid. Albergate said her family has been forced to sell because a reassessment of property taxes was done after Thelen’s death and estate taxes have piled up.
Thelen’s legacy lived on after his death, with folks pointing out his favorite bar stool at the corner and trying to remember where a bullet hole in the bar was located exactly.
“You either loved Boots or you hated him,” Diana Albergate said. “And sometimes both.”
She joked that half the city has the key to the Mermaid and she’ll have to change the locks for the new owners. The hope is that the new owners will reopen the Mermaid as it is, after closing it down for a couple weeks for minor renovations. The sale includes Good Stuff restaurant on the Strand, Poop Deck bar, Pier Surf shop, Cantina Real restaurant and Tiki Mon Creamery & Café.
The new owners plan for a hotel on the site, which will likely take several years to obtain the necessary permits to construct.
Diana Albergate said she’ll miss everybody.
“Sitting here watching the sunset, getting to know the lovely people of Hermosa Beach. That’s nice,” Diana Albergate said.
The last weekend at the Mermaid was so busy, Diana Albergate had to send an “emergency call” to her husband Al to pick up more buns and lettuce at the store. The regulars showed up and so did others for one last look.
“This is the end of an era,” said Buddy Fendler who moved to Hermosa Beach six years ago and fell in love with the Mermaid when a local dragged him down here.
“Of course a local dragged me down here,” Fendler quipped. “All the tourists go every place else. All the locals come here.”
Fendler enjoyed his last Sunday morning breakfast at the Mermaid: eggs over medium, bacon, home-style potatoes and a side of biscuits and gravy. He took a picture of his last Mermaid breakfast and put it on Facebook.
“I wish I had been here a lot longer so I could have enjoyed it more,” Fendler said, adding that the crowd at the Mermaid is a true mix of humanity, from bikers to billionaires.
Robin Hudson has been coming to the Mermaid since she was 4. Her parents brought her along when they had friends in town from Ireland. They’d walk down to the Strand from their home on 17th Street. Hudson remembers often falling asleep in a booth.
Then years later Hudson brought her own kids to the Mermaid and they often nodded off in the booths.
“When my parents passed away, to me if I come here, it’s so much like being with my family,” Hudson said.
Every age gets along at the Mermaid, Hudson said, whether you are 21 or 91. Hudson said she feels for the older crowd of longtime regulars who have congregated for many years in the dim light of the Mermaid.
“People are devastated,” Hudson said of the Mermaid switching owners. “Things change, but this is the real South Bay.”
Steve Caine remembers the first time he set foot inside the Mermaid: Jan. 6, 1999. It was his birthday. He took his girlfriend. They had a long conversation while a pianist played on his keyboard.
“I’ve taken a few dates here,” Caine said. “This is the most random place to take a first date. It was epic: a steak dinner at the Mermaid on a Tuesday night.”
Javier Sola has been coming to the Mermaid for 30 years. Every time he comes in, he has a good time. His favorite time at the Mermaid is when bartender Tommy Slater is working.
“I come in here every weekend when they open, have breakfast and a bloody mary. It’s part of a routine,” said Sola, who owns Sola Motors on Pacific Coast Highway. “And to think it might not be around anymore …”
The change in Mermaid ownership is another sign of the change from old and casual Hermosa to upscale. Katrina Bacallao said Greeko’s gift and smoke shop leaving the city recently, as well as the change at the Mermaid is tough to take.
“It’s sad because a lot of the local establishments that have been here for so long are leaving and new places are coming in. I don’t agree with it,” Bacallao said. She remembers playing tabletop Ms. Pacman with her husband Jose at the Mermaid.
Jose Bacallao said he started going to the Mermaid decades ago, perhaps a little before his 21st birthday.
“This place has a tradition. It’s iconic,” Jose Bacallao said. “This is a big part of our history here. Everyone, whether they are local or new here, knows the place and loves the place.”
Everyone has a story about the Mermaid.
Mike Orchard brought his son to the Mermaid when his son was six days old. “He had to hold out for a little while,” Orchard chuckled.
“I don’t mess around with the other bars, the meat market bars,” Orchard said. “I come here for a good cocktail, and if the cocktail is too strong, at least you got a padded bar.”
Orchard’s remark drew laughs from Suzanne Miller, a former waitress who prefers the customer side of the bar.
“I like that it’s a dive bar,” Miller said. “It’s like the best dive bar.”
The Mermaid’s ambiance has been written about in magazines, Miller noted.
For Verl Farris, the ambiance is what you make of it. He has been visiting the Mermaid for at least 30 years. He meets up with high school friends from the class of 1965 at Leuzinger High School.
“It’s a landmark,” Farris said. “I hate to see it go. All these places. Hopefully, they keep ‘em going. And they don’t raise the [rate for] booze.”
