In 1982, the Trabuco Oaks Steak House was named "A Legend In Its Own Time" by the Southern California Restaurant Writers. It was an exhilarating honor, but also a humbling one. After all, being a legend in your own time is a pretty heavy responsibility. So we ask ourselves, what did we do to become a legend?

On June 28, 1968 Eleanor, Duke and Randy Sherod opened Trabuco Oaks as a snack bar serving campers from O'Neill Park and Trabuco Canyon residents. That worked out pretty well, so they decided to serve dinner as well. Now there are dinners and there are dinners. It was decided that ours would follow two rules: keep it simple, and do it right.

So we serve only top grade beef, the best available, aged just right and hand-trimmed to our exacting standards. Extra-thick top sirloins, porterhouses, and hand-cut filets broiled over real mesquite charcoal. No gas, no electricity, no folderol. Just the best darn steaks you ever tasted. We hand-cut our own french fries, too, and batter our own chicken, bake our own beans, make our own salad dressing, even cook up our own spaghetti sauce from an old family recipe. The old family recipe is part of our recipe for success, too.

Great food is only the start of the Trabuco Oaks legend, though. Our cooking has attracted a growing stream of celebrities including President Nixon, David Hartman, Vic Braden and his tennis college staff and pupils, and many USC & LA Rams Football Stars.

To keep too much celebrity from going to our heads, we have a strict no-tie policy. You can see the results of that policy strung from our rafters, a constant reminder not to take ourselves too seriously. Will being an official legend change us? It hasn't so far, and we're determined that it never will. After all, what's done most to make us a legend is doing our darnedest to please you. That's one thing we do take seriously. And one thing we'll never change.