Post #662391 by The Blue Kahuna on Tue, Dec 25, 2012 8:06 PM

The Volcano was sold to Leon Croce in 1952 and he opened Croce's Restaurant which thrived. It had a great neon sign that said, "Croce's" and had a neon martini glass and olive, that could be seen from the freeway (99).

The building did have a rock facade, it was dark-dark-gray, it looked like lava rock to me to some degree, perhaps not as porous. The building burned down in the early '90s I believe. I remember being told that the original building was built by someone in the Ferrero family, but that's just a hazy memory of a conversation that may-or-may-not have happened and newspaper articles indicate the Croce family built the restaurant, but I'm not so sure of that.

Mr. Croce rebuilt the restaurant, ran it for a few more years and eventually retired. The restaurant was rented to several other restauranteurs but never had the same success. Eventually Mr. Croce sold the property to the people who turned it into the card room that it is now (actually a pretty good place to eat). Here is a link to Mr. Croce's obituary http://www.lodinews.com/news/article_e11a6c8e-25be-11e2-8e9b-001a4bcf887a.html

Not a particularly tiki rich post, but the obituary does provide a couple of items about the Volcano.

If you Google Volcano Cafe under images there is a photo of an ashtray from the restaurant. And there is also a matchbook that says it was called "Croce's Volcano Cafe" and it served French and Italian food . . . that little restaurant site has quite an international food history!

[ Edited by: The Blue Kahuna 2012-12-25 20:32 ]

[ Edited by: Bora Boris - Removed some edited bys. - 2013-03-24 09:17 ]