CHICO's Blog

Kitchen Rose: The South Bay bar and restaurant scene lost a major player last week when Oscar Rosales was struck down suddenly and without warning at 46 by a heart attack. Just like that. He left a wife, a pregnant young daughter and hundreds of friends scratching their heads trying to make sense of it. You can’t. You can delude yourself into feeling slightly better by saying, “Be thankful he had so many friends, his family will be taken care of.” It’s not the same, it just makes things… not worse. I flew in from France last Friday and an hour later got the call that he was gone and over the past week I have reconnected with friends I haven’t spoken to in years – nothing like death to bring people together. When the dust clears we will all move on but things will never be the same. I’ve been trying to find something to be thankful for to no avail until it hit me: I am thankful for this space so I can tell you a bit about Oscar from a personal point of view…

The American dream: Born in El Salvador in the early 60s, Oscar served in the Salvadoran military during the famous civil war, was wounded during battle and honorably discharged. He then began his fight to immigrate to the states – and fight it was. He was captured and beaten by Mexican police on one try and sent back to El Salvador but he kept at it and finally made it to Manhattan Beach. He started out washing dishes at Dano’s Café, MB and worked his way up to head chef when it changed over to the famous, or infamous 12th Street Grill. By then he was in with the golden team of Chris Pike, Loyal Pennings, Kevin Barry and Michael Santomieri and involved in most of their future ventures, which included Sangria, HB, Los Muchachos, HB, and Waterman’s Grill, (now Darren’s, MB). Chances are if you’ve lived in Hermosa or Mahattan sometime over the past 20 years. He and I had our share of run-ins during the six years I worked with him at Sangria, but he was also a dad, (he has an 18 year old daughter), so when the razzing was done I could say, “but seriously…” then tell him about a personal problem and he would always come back with some gemstone of advice or just an acknowledgement, an understanding to make me feel better about whatever I was going through. It always surprised me being that he was such a wise ass the rest of the time…
Figuring I worked three shifts a week at Sangria for about six years, and one shift at Waterman’s for about a year, Oscar had about 987 opportunities to mess with me and he took advantage of every singe one. I remember when he started calling me “Le putain,” (slut in French), and of course got the rest of the kitchen to join in. At first I would razz him right back but one day I got pissed and yelled, “Dude! If you are going to call me a slut in French at least say it right! It’s “LA putain,” not “LE!” and without skipping a beat he yells, “Viva la f**cking France!” I almost dropped my tray I was laughing so hard. From then on I could count on hearing that on a regular basis either at work or yelled from the street while he was driving past my house. He was a piece of work, Oscar. You never knew what was going to come flying out of his mouth. He worked behind the scenes, not always getting the respect and appreciation he deserved. I think people will be surprised by just how much he did now that he is not around to do it. He was loved, he will be missed and all I can say is I am thankful I had the privilege of knowing him…