Mike SwansonLaguna Beach lost a community pillar...

Mike Swanson

Laguna Beach lost a community pillar most widely known as the Royal

Hawaiian on June 12 when Francis Quentin Cabang died of natural

causes at the age of 92.

While some residents, since 1947, might know Cabang best as

proprietor of the Royal Hawaiian, a North Laguna bar and grill known

for its mai tai-like Lapu Lapu, Cabang’s life was a classic

rags-to-riches story.

“He was an astute businessman who made the American Dream come

true,” said Ed Fry, a bartender at the Royal Hawaiian since 1984. “We

need more stories like Francis’.”

Cabang emigrated to the United States from the Philippines in 1928

as a 17-year-old named Quiterio Cabang looking for work. After a

month-and-a-half-long boat ride, Cabang arrived in San Francisco,

where the emigration employees called him Francis, his son Junior

Cabang said.

With his Americanized name, And so, Francis Cabang began working

as a farm laborer, and eventually became a busboy and a waiter.

“He went wherever there was work,” Junior Cabang said. “He wanted

out of agriculture and got an offer to work in the restaurant

business at the Victor Hugo Inn here in Laguna in the early ‘40s.

That job turned out being the root of the Royal Hawaiian.”

The Victor Hugo Inn is now Las Brisas Restaurant, which sits next

to the Royal Hawaiian.

After enduring the Depression working in Northern and Southern

California, Cabang left for Europe to fight in World War II. He was

among the soldiers who survived storming the beach at Normandy. Gen.

George S. Patton awarded Cabang the bronze star in Berlin in 1944.

“My father could have fought in the Pacific, but he wanted to go

to Europe,” Junior Cabang said, “He wanted to be among the Americans.

He was part of that great generation of men who survived the

Depression, fought in the war, then came back and became a successful

businessman. His life was nothing like ours. We’ve done nothing like

that.”

Cabang returned to his job at the Victor Hugo Inn after the war

and left for Hawaii shortly thereafter, again for a job -- this time

canning pineapples.

In 1947, Cabang got a call from Bill Hannah, whom Cabang had known

from his years at the Victor Hugo Inn, asking him to move back to

Laguna to run his new restaurant, the Royal Hawaiian.

Hannah said he would put up all of the money, so Cabang quickly

accepted and moved to Laguna Beach for good.

Contrary to rumors, Junior Cabang said, his father did not win the

Royal Hawaiian in a card game.

“My father was a businessman,” Junior Cabang said. “He had a

gambling house on Third Street, so that’s probably the connection to

the rumor, but he bought the place outright in 1951.

“He saved the money he made bussing and waiting tables. He didn’t

drive a car and he’d buy run-down cottages, paint them, glaze them

and sell them for a $600 profit. He worked 24 hours a day.”

The Royal Hawaiian was only a restaurant until 1951, when Cabang

and accountant partner Al Mack bought the restaurant and turned it

into a bar and grill.

“There’s always some kind of Englishman who’s entranced by

Hawaiian culture,” Junior Cabang said. “My father had a thing for

finding Englishmen with money who wanted him on their side.”

A funeral in Newport Beach on June 17 was testimony to how people

were touched by Cabang in his nearly 60 years in Laguna Beach.

“The church was packed,” said Martha Lydick, a neighbor of the

Cabangs in Mystic Hills since 1962, who said she’d been through a lot

with the family, including the fire in 1993 that claimed both of

their homes. The houses were rebuilt on the same lots in 1995.

“There was standing-room only and the procession went for blocks,”

she said. “It was a measure of the community’s respect for Francis

and the entire Cabang family.”

It was an elaborate Catholic ceremony that brought people Junior

Cabangs said he’d never seen before, but told him they used to be

Royal Hawaiian regulars.

“All of these people came out of nowhere in support,” he said.

“[The Royal Hawaiian] has thousands of memories over the last 56

years, and people came out of nowhere to remember my father. We have

so many friends in this city. My family’s lucky he moved to Laguna

Beach.”

A large group convened at the Royal Hawaiian on Tuesday evening,

June 17, to celebrate the life of “Papa” Cabang.

Junior Cabang and sister Marilyn have been overseeing the Royal

Hawaiian’s operation for the last 16 years, accepting the torch from

their father after his health began to decline. He suffered from Type

II diabetes and asthma.

Nicknamed “King of the Boys,” Francis Quentin Cabang is survived

by wife Dionisia; daughters Marilyn Pannell and Julie Lizides; sons

Junior and Rufino; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

“We love you, Papa, we always will,” the family said. “Aloha nui

loa.”

* MIKE SWANSON is a reporter for the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot.

He covers education, public safety and City Hall. He can be reached

at 494-4321 or mike.swanson@latimes.com.