Soon, the answer will be tacos

Paul Clinton

After 27 years dishing out fresh pasta and sauces, the proprietors of

What’s Cooking Bistro are closing their restaurant, after the Irvine

Co. declined to retain them at the Newport Hills Center.

The Italian eatery’s owners have planned a farewell party for

Saturday.

“It’s so sad that [the Irvine Co.] will not renew our lease,” said

Lucy Luhan, who started the restaurant in 1976. “They have a taco

place coming in. Family establishments are being replaced by fast

food places because they make more money.”

In early 2004, Mexican eatery Taco Rosa is expected to open at the

same location. The upscale cantina-style restaurant is being launched

by the Calderon family, which owns Taco Mesa in Costa Mesa.

Mayor Steve Bromberg honored Luhan and her family at Tuesday’s

City Council meeting with a proclamation. Bromberg said he was sorry

to see the community lose a longtime and popular eatery.

“It’s absolutely a shame,” Bromberg said. “There are so few locals

places, as I like to call them.”

Luhan first signed a lease with the Irvine Co. in October 1975 for

a space in the center. She began offering more than 50 types of

pastas and 10 different varieties of sauces. What’s Cooking was also

notable for printing the caloric count of its dishes on its menu for

health-conscious diners.

Luhan’s mother, Mary Vallera, now 89, continued to make fresh

pasta from scratch each day, even after Luhan turned over the

day-to-day operation of the eatery to her two sons in 1999. Luhan

moved to Italy at the time to open a bed and breakfast. She had been

running B&B; of Tuscany until last week, when she returned here to

close the restaurant.

Negotiations between Luhan’s son Jorge and the Irvine Co. began

earlier this year to keep the eatery at the Newport Hills Center.

However, the company elected to remove What’s Cooking because they

were six months behind on the rent, Irvine Co. spokeswoman Jennifer

Heiger said.

“The most serious issue we faced was the restaurant’s inability to

pay its rent,” Heiger said. “The failure to pay rent was a persistent

problem that dated back several years.”

While sales from the center’s other stores has risen 15% in the

past two years, sales at What’s Cooking were “consistently down,”

Heiger said.

Jorge Luhan disputed those claims, saying the restaurant was only

“two to three months” behind in rent.

“We were doing well,” he said. “We were making money.”

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

paul.clinton@latimes.com.