Noriega Hotel

Thursday, June 18, 2009 - Noriega Hotel - Basque Restaurant
Bakersfield, CA

{Click on any photo to view the full size image}

The Noriega Hotel is one of the last of the old "Boarding House" style Basque restaurants. They still have 12 boarders who reside in the building just to the left of the restaurant.

Here is a link to their web site:

Noriega Hotel Web Site

They only have one sitting for lunch and one sitting for dinner. Lunch is served at Noon and Dinner at 7:00 PM.

The Hotel, restaurant and handball court.

Rochelle Ladd {nee Elizalde} handles the reservations, finances and back up bar tender as well as half owner with her sister. The Noriega Hotel was founded by Faustino Noriega in 1893. Taken over in 1931 by Juan and Gracianna Elizalde, Rochelle's Grandparents and run by their descendants to this day.
One of my table mates was Rochelle's cousin

The food is very tasty and plentiful. In fact you can just ask the waitress for more of any item including the main courses. All lunches and dinners are prix fixe menu. View their web site for what dishes are for each given day of the week. Thursday dinner the two main course items are beef stew and spareribs. The stew was very tender and tasty. The spareribs were baked and had an excellent flavor.
Soup, and bread

Pickled tongue, beans wine, hot sauce, and salad


The beets are hidden behind the wine bottle and beans. I also missed the corn and the French Fries.

The beef stew

A short video of the meal



My table.

Taking away the empty plates

Spaghetti

Rochelle's cousin eating a sparerib


Another table mate, Don Rivera eating a rib

The dessert was a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Tonight it was suppose to be spumoni, but the ice cream company goofed.

One of the waitresses, Bernadette wanted her picture taken

Also there was a special later sitting for a meeting of the Wool Growers Asociation of the Bakersfield area. The long table at the left is just being filled. Waitress' right

I plan on riding the 200 miles down and 200 back for lunch later this Summer.

Friday morning, June 19, 2009 - Breakfast

Since I was only a hair over 200 miles from home. I decided to have breakfast at the Noriega Hotel before heading home. Also it was right along my route home.
All meals are served Family Style including breakfast. And breakfast is the only meal that has a two hour window of service.

The waitresses work all shifts. Their vacation is the first two weeks in August when the restaurant closes it doors and everyone takes vacation.

Bernadette again wanted her picture taken. She will head off to France for her vacation this year. This setup is just for me.

My table mates. Although I got there fairly late only 10 minutes from the close of breakfast. My Family Style was for one. The only breakfast choice is omelette or scrambled eggs. The rest is a plate full of bacon, ham, pork chops, Basque sausage AND French Fries, along with bread and jelly and coffee and wine.
The last of the breakfast patrons and Bernadette {what a ham :-) }

Rochelle was at the bar pouring the coffee and taking the egg order and minding the cash register. I took a photo of her, but it did not come out. Too blurry :-(

I also took a few photos when I first got to Bakersfield yesterday and I wanted to locate Noriega's. So the following photos are from Thursday afternoon.



A list by state of other Basque Restaurants in the United States:
Buber's Basque Restaurant Page


~end